Muted Light
by whithertits
Summary: Death sends Dean into the cage to get Sam's soul.  Spoilers for 6x11.
1. Chapter 1

Dean looked through the barred slot toward Sam (the thing that looked like Sam) and tried to envision a world where he killed his brother. He knew what he had to do, logically. Knew that there were lines this Sam was willing to cross— had already crossed— that made him a danger. He tried to imagine slitting Sam's throat, and that made the tattered edges of his own soul curl up and whimper. He couldn't kill Sam. He just. Couldn't.

He closed the window and walked out of the panic room. He closed the door to the stairs behind himself and spent a long moment staring it down; it felt like running away. When he turned around and saw Death sitting at Bobby's table, a spread of hotdogs and pop resting within easy reach, hope surged within him before suspicion took its place.

"Dean," Death greeted him, far-too cheery for Dean's peace of mind. He gestured at the chair next to him. "Join me."

Dean crossed the distance between them as Death moved one of the wrapped dogs in front of Dean. "Brought you one from a little stand in Los Angeles known for their bacon dogs." Dean hesitated, staring at the spread on the table as Death chewed his food. "Sit," Death ordered, uncompromising. He took another bite of his hotdog.

Dean sat. "Wow, what's with you and cheap food?" he asked, trying desperately to lighten his mood.

Death raised his eyebrows. "I could ask you the same thing," he said, unflappable. He looked at Dean. "' thought I'd have a treat before I put the ring back on." Dean took the ring out of his pocket and stared at it. It looked harmless, the white of its stone dull in the dim light. "Heavier than it looks, isn't it? Sometimes you just want the thing off. But you know that." He might as well have been talking about the weather, for all the emphasis he gave his words. He poured his beer into a plastic cup, tilted carefully to prevent foam. The bottle clinked against the table when he put it down. "Not hungry?" he asked when Dean made no response.

Dean was sick of playing around. "Look. I think you know that I flunked." It hurt to say the words, to admit to his inevitable failure. He put the ring down on the table, well within Death's reach. "So there. Oh and by the way, I uh, I sucked at being you. I screwed up the whole natural order thing, but I'm... sure you knew about that too." He couldn't look at Death as he spoke, but he felt the power of his gaze. Dean looked down at the table; all he could think about was the fact that he'd messed up Sam's last chance for salvation. Damned his soul to an angel gangbang for all eternity.

"So if you could go back, would you simply kill the little girl, no fuss, no stomping your feet?" It was the same tone of voice Dad had used when asking Dean to report on a hunt, like Death already knew the answer but wanted to hear Dean say it.

"Knowing what I know now, yeah." Dean stared Death full in the face. He couldn't hide from the truth of that: it was his own stupidity, his own lack of foresight, which had made him fail. He wouldn't hide from that.

"I'm surprised to hear that." Death took a long pull on his beer. "Surprised, and glad."

Which wasn't comforting at all. "Yeah, well, don't get excited, I would have saved the nurse, okay, that's it." His explanation trailed off at the end, the force he'd put into the words unable to hold up under the weight of his guilt. He stared at the table.

"I think it's a little more than that." The pull of Death's gaze had Dean meeting it again. "Today, you got a hard look behind the curtain. Wrecking the natural order's not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you, Dean. You throw away your life because you've come to assume it'll bounce right back into your lap. The human soul is not a rubber ball. It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine. So. I think you've learned something today." Death had leaned forward during his little speech, earnest. He sat back once he was finished and finished the last of his beer with a satisfied air of a lesson well taught. He might as well have wiped his hands together in completion.

Which was bullshit. "You wanna know what I think?" Dean said, voice gathering the strength it had been missing before. The best defense was a good offense, and Dean's offense was a skill he'd honed for years. "I think you knew that I wouldn't last a day." He stared at Death, but now Death was the one unwilling to meet his eyes.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. For an immortal cornerstone of the universe, he was a shit liar.

Dean kept pushing. "I lost, fine. But at least have the balls to admit it was rigged from the jump."

Death didn't buckle under the pressure. His neck was straight, chin raised with pride, as he turned and looked at Dean. "Most people speak to me with more respect," he said quietly, the threat behind his words palpable.

Dread ripped down Dean's spine. "I didn't mean—"

Death raised a finger and silenced Dean. "We're done here." Bitterness flooded through him, another opportunity lost. "It's been lovely," he said, wiping his hands and standing. "Now, I'm going to take you to Hell so you can get your brother's soul back."

Dean's eyes bugged out, stunned almost to the point of silence. "What are you talking about? I lost the bet."

"I don't need to explain myself to _you_, Dean. I have my own reasons for wanting Sam back— enough to let you try your hand at it."

"I thought— can't you just go get him?" Dean furrowed his brow and stood up from his seat, adrenaline surging through his veins and making it impossible to sit still.

"The box is not like anything else in this universe, Dean. To get your brother out in one piece, without letting those bickering angels out —well, even Death needs a key for that. Unless you want Lucifer and Michael to start up their little spat again?" Death raised his eyebrows at Dean. Dean couldn't help but wish that Death were more menacing. There was nothing about him that said _Horseman of the Apocalypse_. He was so subdued, so innocuous.

"No," Dean muttered, jaw clenched. He looked away, hope mixing with fear as his stomach roiled. He steeled himself and turned his eyes back to Death, looking at him straight on, shouldering the mantle of someone strong. Someone who could save his brother. "What are you waiting for? Let's go." He wasn't going to let this chance slip through his fingers.

"One more thing, Dean— you won't be going to Hell as you know it. Lucifer's box is... irregular. It changes people. If you find your brother inside, I'll come to bring you home. But I won't come for you if you fail: this is _your_ task."

"I'll be stuck in the box with Sam?" Dean asked, unable to crush the twisted surge of joy he felt at the thought. It should have made him worried, but knowing he'd be with Sam in just a few minutes was the best news he'd heard since he found out Sam was (mostly) alive.

"Not just Sam. The archangels, your brother and anything else that's gotten sucked into the box over the millennia."

"I can deal with it. Just send me in," Dean said, anxious to go. Being so close to getting his brother back was making his skin itch.

Death looked at him and shook out his shirt-cuffs from his jacket sleeves. "Do not think to rush me, Dean."

Dean rocked forward on the balls of his feet. "Just do—"

Death didn't fuck around with rituals. The annoyingly-familiar feeling of vertigo brought on by instant transportation he'd learned from exposure to Castiel swept over him. His eyes rolled back in his head; he stumbled, and by the time he had regained his balance he was somewhere else.

Dean's skin tightened into goosebumps and the air condensed until his lungs couldn't expand. For a too-long moment it felt like he was suffocating, bright lights on a black background, and then he opened his eyes. The pressure against him fell away, reversed, and instead his insides were pressing out against the barrier of his skin. A scream built up in the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down. He clenched his gut and a small burst of air forced its way out from chest. The air seemed to _pop_ the moment he opened his mouth, and just like that, he was fine. He sucked in a long breath and released it; there was no pain, as though he'd imagined the whole thing. A shiver worked its way up from the small of his back.

The first thing he noticed was that he felt like he was somewhere dead.

It was no Hell; there was a sky, for one. It was pure black: empty space without the comforting twinkle of stars, but it was there, a clear cut of definition from the horizon. He was standing in a desert, the sand red-stained and perfectly flat, with no sign of the mountainous dunes Dean knew to expect from Earth's deserts. Dean was no expert, but he knew dunes were formed by wind, and there was no wind here. No lines in the sand. Nothing to make him believe that anything had ever moved at all.

Dean tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath, reveling in the sound of air moving through his lungs. He counted his breath in and held it, then released it in a sudden puff when the sound of his breath didn't stop with his inhale. He sniffed the air again and wrinkled his nose in surprise when it didn't dry out. It didn't fit with the scenery, but the air was humid. Sweat broke out on his skin and the air grew thick as the humidity rose, dense and cloying. It was the same feeling of suffocation he'd felt before, though it was intensifying much more slowly. It was strong enough now it was making his head throb with its persistent demands for attention. He turned in a circle, and his ears popped, but there was no sign of anything but more sand.

There was light despite the lack of sun, moon or stars, but there were no shadows on the ground. The light was red, and stained everything a subtle shade of crimson. There was nothing he could use to orient himself, nothing to tell time, just him, standing alone in an ocean of sand.

A box was a box was a box: it had limits, no matter how it seemed. He found the idea of searching endlessly for his brother strangely comforting. He'd spent the last few months stagnating, desperate to fix whatever was wrong with his brother but paralyzed by the lack of options. He'd gotten used to the feeling of inertia after the year playing house with Lisa and Ben, but now he had a direction to go in, real progress within his reach. It loosened the noose that had been steadily tightening around his neck ever since Sam had sacrificed himself to stop the apocalypse.

This was his chance. He'd messed up every other thing in his life, but Sam had always been his shot at redemption, his road to make things better. Sam had been on the right track until Dean and the Yellow-Eyed Demon had dragged him back into their mess of a life, and had stayed above water until Dean abandoned him to Ruby's influence. Sam was a good kid, one who deserved a second chance— and a third, a fourth, as many as Dean could give him.

If he could get Sam home, it wouldn't matter so much that Dean was a monster. It wouldn't matter that everything he touched turned to shit when he stuck around for longer than the duration of a hunt. Sam had always been able to thrive in the shadow of his darkness.

A bump on the horizon caught his eye and Dean squinted. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked again and it was still there: something was jutting out from the horizon. Dean broke into a light jog and was relieved when the lump got closer, more than a mirage, something real rather than a false inkling of hope that would never get any closer. The air pressure rose sharply as he closed his eyes as they began to ache. He kept running; there was nothing but clear ground and whatever the lump was for as far as he'd been able to see.

As suddenly as it rose, the air pressure dropped down again, and between one blink and the next, the stench hit him. The air in his lungs burned with the scent of rotting meat, rank and foul. Dean forced down his gag reflex and barreled on, but eventually the rancid smell was too much and he covered his mouth as he gagged. The smell settled into his stomach like a bad shot of tequila and he curled as his stomach cramped. The smell was so distracting it came as a surprise when he stepped onto something other than flat sand.

Dean breathed through his sleeve and backed up, then was vomiting before the sight in front of him fully processed.

He had stepped on Sam's corpse.

The body was twisted in on itself, left arm flung out across Dean's path, the knees tucked in close to the chest. It was naked, skin black and swollen at the joints, ever so slightly bloated against the ground where the blood had pooled. There were dark holes in the skin of its cheeks, belly, groin, dug out as though crows had been picking at it. The mop of Sam's hair fell lazily over his face, familiar against a cut so deep the white of cheekbones shone through, crisscrossed with thin strands of tissue.

Dean took a step back and stumbled. He fell, but he didn't hit the ground; he'd landed on another body, its long legs twisted at an impossible angle away from its hips. He rolled off it with a cry and pushed himself to his feet and stared, fighting back a sudden influx of tears.

He was surrounded by dead bodies, all of them Sam's. The air was filled with the smell of putrefaction, overriding the smell of his bile, and around him were Sams of all different ages, strewn about carelessly like broken toys. He could see what looked like an eight-year old Sam with his entrails spilling out on the ground, steaming in the air, hands clutched around one of the coils. There was a pimply faced Sam of his teenaged years with the bottom half of his jaw missing, and Dean stopped looking, shut his brain down. He snapped his eyes down to the ground and started walking. He'd seen worse, in Hell as well as topside. If he could just convince himself that the tiny curl of a baby's hand—_God_— wasn't Sam's, he'd be able to walk out of here.

They weren't real. There were no bugs flying around, no flies laying their eggs in the dead meat, and this shit wasn't real. Dean just had to keep that thought in mind until the bodies went away, just one more taunt that didn't work. His heartbeat pounded in his temple and bile rose up in his throat, the sight of a Sam with his chest broken open, ribs shining in a bright row of red against the black sky catching his eyes, and without warning the ground dropped out from underneath him. Dean yelped and he could _taste_ the rot on his tongue, and that was it. Game over, he was vomiting even as he tumbled, bent in two as he slid down the slope.

The bodies weren't so dense here, but the smell was worse, sulfurous and cloying. He squeezed his eyes shut against the burn in the air and clenched his fingers against the sand. He breathed through his mouth and pretended he didn't taste anything. The sand was cold against his fingers; he opened his eyes and stared down at the wet furrows that marked where his fingers had been. Dean looked up.

He was on the edge of a river. The air smelled toxic, but the water shone clear, bright with light that wasn't there. He pushed himself up and moved to the edge of the bank; the smell got worse, but he couldn't see any bodies in the water. The riverbed fell almost straight down from Dean's position, clear like acid until the darkness swallowed it up. There didn't seem to be any bodies in the water, but he wouldn't be surprised if there were, given the smell.

The opposite bank looked empty and Dean wanted to be there, away. He refused to look behind him.

He crouched down and dipped a finger in the water and left it there. His skin tingled, as though the water was actually slightly acidic, but it wasn't so bad he was worried about swimming in it. There had been no rivers in Hell, despite what the myths said. That there were rivers here, in the Cage— he didn't know what that meant.

But there was no way he was going back, so that left crossing the river. There was no boatman to ferry him across, which was fine. Even if the water had burned the flesh from his bones, he'd have swum through it to get away from this side of the river.

Dean untied his boots and kicked them to the side, then stripped off his jeans and shirt in a series of practiced motions. The water shone at him, deceptively bright, clear and empty. Topside, he'd take that as a sign to stay out of it.

Here, Dean dove down into the water and didn't look back.

oOo

Dean flips through the pages of his book. He stares eagerly at the pictures and spends a minute wishing he could read. "What's this one, Mom?" he asks. Mom says he has the voice of an angel, high and pretty. Dean thinks that Mom is nice to pretend he doesn't sound like a girl.

Mom peers over his shoulder to where he's pointing and runs a hand through his hair. "That one's an eagle," she says and presses a kiss to the top of his head. She steps back and the sound of her low humming fills the room, brightening the room better than the sun.

Dean stares at the pictures on the page, then at the letters. He can sing the alphabet song, but he can't remember what they all look like. He stares at the word next to the picture of the eagle and tells himself, _That is the letter E. E is for Eagle._ E is also for elephant, but Dean can't remember any of the other examples from his alphabet book.

Dean flips the page and screws up his nose at the picture of the ugly bird that confronts him. "Mom, what's this one? It's ugly."

The sounds of Mom making lunch stops again, and whatever song she's singing cuts off, too. She gives him a hug and looks over his shoulder at his book while she squeezes him. "That one's a vulture, Dean. Their heads have no feathers because they'd just get messy." She sounds happy, like Dean is telling her the best bedtime story in the world instead of bugging her about _birds_ just to spend time with her.

"I like getting messy," Dean declares firmly. He turns his head and sticks his nose into Mom's cheek, glad it's not runny. He likes rubbing noses with his mom, likes that she calls them _Eskimo kisses_. Dean wants a kind of kiss to be named after him one day.

Mom laughs and stands up again. "You should never judge something on face value," she says, smart as only his mom could be.

Dean isn't sure what face value is, but he's pretty sure he'll figure it out eventually. If not, he can always ask Mom.

"This vulture's face is pretty ugly, though," Dean can't help but point out.

Mom laughs again and Dean smiles back. Moms are the _best_. "Would you tell me if I were ugly, Dean?" she asks, and there's something in her voice Dean doesn't recognize. "I would still love you if you did. Still protect you." Her eyes look flat, like they sometimes do when she and Dad had been fighting.

Dean reaches out and catches a lock of his Mom's hair. "Don't be silly, Mom," he sighs out. "It wouldn't matter if you looked like a witch— you'd still be the bestest, prettiest Mom in the world!" He's sure of it, more sure of that than he is of anything.

Dean closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose over his mom's hair, hoping to catch a scent, but the usual smell of fresh food and soap doesn't greet him. He opens his eyes to an empty kitchen.

"Mom?" he asks into the dark. "Where are you?"

oOo

Dean woke with a start, disoriented at a brief, fading feeling of weightlessness. Nausea roiled through his stomach; he felt like he'd been on the bender of a fucking lifetime, which made shit sense since he'd just been— somewhere else. With Sam? His head was pounding.

He rolled from his side to his front, and his clothes were wet and clung to his skin. He coughed and water splashed out on the ground; he stared at it, uncomprehending, as it sank into the sand in front of his face, darkening the sand to scarlet. His hair dripped water down his forehead and into his eyes, and he licked his lips; the water was thick and so metallic tasting that he gagged and spat out onto the ground. It was clear, not red like Dean was half-expecting—not blood, no matter what it tasted like. Dean shivered and pushed himself up off the ground to look around and— there was Sam.

Sam was wet, too. He was laid flat-out on his front, head cradled in his arms, wheezing hard. He looked up, his eyes glazed and unfocused. He seemed to come back to himself under the weight of Dean's gaze. "Dean?" he asked, voice hoarse, tired.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked. He got himself into a crouch and pushed himself to his feet, and blinked against the rush of vertigo.

"I think so," Sam answered. He took Dean's hand when it was offered and pulled himself up; Dean blinked at him, still slightly dazed, as Sam grew so quickly upright— like twenty years time-lapsed right in front of him, every time.

Dean resisted the urge to give his brother a pat down and took in their surroundings. They were outside; the sky stretched out above them, dark and empty, limitless black lifting up from the horizon. There were no stars, and the lack of them made it feel like there were holes punched through the sky, waiting to suck them in. He spun around but there was nothing but flat, barren desert spread out around him on all sides, the earth dry and cracked. The air was cold, so dry the water on their clothes was already evaporating into the air. Dean could feel his lips chapping and sucked them into his mouth to moisten them, but gave it up as useless when they immediately dried out again. He could see, but it was the deceptive light of twilight, right on the edge of true darkness. They had shadows, but they were barely there, nothing more than faint impressions on the ground.

"Where are we?" Dean breathed out. A shiver lanced its way down his spine, like someone was walking over his grave. Nothing about this was right. It was more than the empty sky, more than the endless desert— they'd woken up drenched, but they were already mostly dry, and there was no sign of water anywhere nearby.

Sam looked at him oddly, then with horror as comprehension dawned. He stepped up close enough to stand on Dean's faint shadow, and his proximity leeched the darkness out of the air. Sam's features were clear, distinct and familiar, home in a world where nothing else seemed right. He grabbed Dean by the upper arms and stared into his eyes. "Don't you remember, Dean?" His eyes snapped back and forth, intent on Dean's face.

Dean twisted and shrugged out of Sam's grip. "Not where the fuck we are, no." He took a step back, until he didn't have to crane his neck up to look at Sam. Fucker seemed to be getting bigger every day.

Sam cursed and spun away, head snapping back and forth as though searching for something. "Shit." He looked back at Dean and his forehead was shaped into his compassionate bitch face. "This is— this is Hell, Dean. We just crossed the River Lethe."

Dread clawed at the edges of Dean's mind. "Are we dead, Sammy?" He could only hope his voice wasn't shaking as much as it felt like.

Sam blinked, and then laughed, and it was one of relief rather than hysteria. "No. Shit, no, Dean— we're here for Dad."

Hope surged through Dean, sudden and sickening. His throat closed up; he wavered on his feet, suddenly dizzy. He searched Sam's face and the hard knot of tension he'd been carrying around since the hospital came loose, but numbness crept in to replace it almost immediately and he welcomed the feeling. A quiver tried to start up in his chest, but the emptiness chased it back. "That— that's great." He blinked, and looked out over the flat, red line of the horizon. "And this— I didn't have to make a deal?"

Sam's eyes darkened from hazel to muddy brown. "No, _we_ didn't have to make any deals. Deals never work out, Dean— you should know that by now."

Dean shifted in place, uncomfortable. "Whatever. If you remember so much, what just happened?"

"Do you ever do ANY reading, Dean?" Sam sighed in exasperation. "I just said, Dean— we just crossed a river. It must have been the Lethe."

"Keep talking, Sam." Dean rolled his eyes and rocked forward on his heels. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. Dean was no rookie— he knew that no matter the signals his body was trying desperately to send his brain, if he were in Hell he'd be able function indefinitely. Souls didn't need sustenance to continue existing; they needed substance.

"The River Lethe, Dean— the River of Forgetfulness?" He stared at Dean as though that was supposed to jog his memory.

"Well, it didn't seem to make _you_ forget, now did it, Sam?"

"I don't get it, either," Sam frowned and combed his hands through his hair— it had dried and poofed up, so cowlicks sprung out from his head every which way. "Maybe," he paused, then frowned. "Did you drink the water?"

Dean couldn't remember shit about the river. "I coughed some up when I woke up," he offered, the closest he could come to an explanation.

"So you probably swallowed some," Sam nodded, theory confirmed. "Well, what do you remember?" He let his legs collapse out from under him and sat down on the ground. He gestured at Dean to do the same and Dean did, reluctant. Time for a sharing circle, whether he liked it or not.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Dean working his memory forward. "I remember helping out Deacon," he said eventually. "Everything after that gets— hazy."

A look of pain crossed Sam's face and he moved as though to reach out and grab Dean's hand. Dean tucked his hands between his legs and stiffened up; Sam sighed and gripped his arm for a moment and then pulled back out of Dean's space.

"That's... more missing than I thought," Sam confessed. "We worked a few cases after that; a poltergeist, a woman in white." He paused, uncomfortable. "You got attacked by a djinn— that wasn't fun. Then Bobby called."

"And?" Dean demanded, desperation making a hard edge creep into his voice.

"And he found a spell— the Orpheus loophole. It gives us one chance to find Dad and bring him back with us."

"Orpheus— that's Greek, yeah?" Dean remembered Orpheus; Orpheus came back from Hell empty-handed.

"So are the rivers," Sam agreed. "There're supposed to be five of them, but I don't know if that's going to be true— the River Lethe was supposed to be one of the last things we hit."

Dean perked up. "Did we get a boatman?" he asked.

Sam laughed. "No, Dean— no boatman. No boatman, no boat— that's why we swam across." He paused. "We've been alone the whole time. No damned souls, no demons. Just you and me and the river."

Dean couldn't remember the river, let alone swimming across it, and there was no river anywhere around them now. If he hadn't woken up wet and choking, he wouldn't have believed it. "So where'd the river go?" He didn't want to touch the subject of them being alone. Alone meant nothing to go off of. Alone meant no Dad.

"I dunno." Sam looked over his shoulder as though the river would magically appear if he stared hard enough. "Maybe all you can do here is move forward."

"Better press on," Dean quoted and laughed at himself. "Did we even have a plan? All I see is a whole lotta nothing with no signs to follow." Sam probably wanted to talk more, but Dean wasn't going there. They were in Hell: crying on his brother's shoulder was asking too much.

Sam studied Dean and eventually nodded, letting the subject drop. "You didn't miss much— this is the first level. There's supposed to be close to a dozen of them, but that's just myth. There's no way to know what we'll face for sure." His attention shifted, turning out toward the horizon. "The books said souls are drawn toward the center, so there might not be much to see until we get closer."

The ground didn't slope down, and there was nothing to indicate the way down toward the center. Dean shifted until his shoulders nudged against Sam's. "Is there a stairway I'm not seeing, Sam?"

"No stairs," Sam said, eyes distant. Fucking creepy, when Sam looked like he was touching that part of himself that Yellow-Eyed bastard was responsible for. "But..." He shook himself, eyes clearing. "It looks flat, yeah. But we can't trust anything here, Dean, it's Hell. Nothing is going to be what it seems."

"If you start quoting that David Bowie movie I'm gonna leave your ass here," Dean quipped, then trailed reluctantly behind Sam as his brother stood up and jogged over to a lonely outcropping of rocks; standing alone on the barren landscape made him nervous. Sam crouched down and dug into the rocks; with a small, pleased noise, he pulled out— "Is that coal?" Dean asked, flabbergasted.

"It's a lodestone," Sam said smugly. "If this place has any sort of magnetic field, it'll act like a compass." He waved the rock over his sleeve, and the cuff lifted into the air to follow it. The metal snap on his shirt waved back and forth and brought the cloth with it, drawn to the rock.

"That's convenient," Dean muttered, and stared as Sam placed the black stone on the ground and stepped back. It stayed in place, stubbornly unhelpful for a long, drawn out moment before it seemed to make up its mind and rolled slowly to the left.

"See?" Sam said, smug in his success. "We just have to follow where it goes." He bent down, impossibly long body folded in half, and picked up the lodestone again. He seemed bigger than Dean remembered, somehow. Like being in Hell had pumped him full of fuel. Dean wasn't going to dwell on it: wasn't thinking about what part of Sam would thrive in these conditions.

"That doesn't even make sense," Dean said. "Fucking magnets."

Sam shrugged his overly-broad shoulders and smiled, then tossed the lodestone to Dean. He caught it automatically, but he almost fumbled it; it was heavier than it looked and something about it sent shocks running up his arm. He brought the thing up to his face to inspect it. It was a shiny black, almost polished— completely out of place against the red landscape. His heart beat erratically against his ribs as though trying to escape, and Dean pocketed the stone. He struck off in the direction indicated: there was time for dealing with Sam's shit later, when they weren't in fucking _Hell_, standing around like a pair of pigeons just waiting for someone to mark them out. Just because Sam had walked over to that pile of rocks and picked the thing out like he knew it would be there— it didn't have to mean jack shit. "Come on, Sam. Dad's not going to find himself."

"He might," Sam said, never one to let things go. "If anyone could, it'd be him."

"Let's just hope we can find him," Dean muttered. He didn't want to think about what it would take to find their Dad if he wasn't where Sam expected him to be, what it would mean if he was loose and running around Hell.

They struck off toward the horizon.

oOo

There was no gradual shift in the scenery. Dean felt like they'd been walking for hours with no progress, no sign they were doing anything but walking in circles. Even Sam'd gotten quiet, hunching in on himself as his strides got longer, eager to eat up the distance.

Dean tossed Sam's little magic marble back and forth between his hands, glad to have something to fidget with. "Any ideas for what we'll to do once the demons start showing up? We haven't got the Colt, we've got no knives— all we have is your pet rock, here."

Sam smoothed his hair from his face, too-long sideburns peeking out briefly. "Sucks you can't remember," he sighed, and raised his eyes to the sky before peeking at Dean from the side of his eye. "Our working theory is that this isn't going to be like back home— anything we meet down here is going to be," he waved his hands, struggling to find the words. "It's not going to be possessing anything— it'll appear as itself. No human body for them to hide behind."

"So we can put them down," Dean concluded, grinning. He tossed Sam the lodestone and clapped his hands together, then paused. "We still don't have anything better than our hands to take 'em on, though."

Sam had his mouth opened to answer when the world around them... changed. The desert melted away; the ground, solid and dry up to that point, sagged under their weight. Dean grimaced and lifted up his boot to inspect the mud that clung to its underside, and then looked around.

They were in the middle of a mud field. The desert was gone without a trace, like it had never been there. Instead, wet ground stretched out on all sides, as unending and bland as the dried desert they'd just left. The mud was tinted red, like everything here seemed to be, as though someone had just dumped water onto the desert they'd been walking through.

"I guess we were going the right way, huh?" Sam said, smiling at Dean.

Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed the lodestone back from Sam. He tossed it up in the air, letting it fall straight down to land on the ground with a _splat_. Of course, with the ground muddy, the lodestone stayed stubbornly in place. "Great. Your compass doesn't work in the mud." He bent down and picked up the stone, wiping it off with his sleeve before he put it into his pocket.

Sam frowned at Dean, lips pursing. "We could try digging a hole— this whole place is supposed to be slanted toward the center, and if we're going down, the water should show us which direction to head in."

Dean grimaced at the thought— the air here was just as chill as it had been in the desert and digging in the mud would only make it worse— but nodded. "Better than nothing," he agreed.

Sam rolled his eyes and squatted down, perched lightly on his feet. "You gonna help me dig a hole or what?"

Dean dropped into a squat next to his brother and dug his hands into the wet ground. His fingers sunk into the mud easily— it was cold, more than he'd expected. It was so cold it felt like the mud should have been frozen solid. He cupped his hands together and scooped out a handful, and tossed it over his shoulder with his fingers loose, and smirked when Sam yelped in protest.

They dug mostly in silence, fingers brushing together occasionally as they worked the same hole. Sam's hands stayed hot despite the cold muck, radiating heat like the human furnace he was. Dean shivered in his jacket and hunched his shoulders. When he pushed his fingers into the ground again, the tips of his fingers brushed against something sharp.

Dean furrowed his brow and pushed his fingers in deeper— the mud gave way easily no matter how far he pushed down, belying its cold temperature. He heaved the wet earth upward and it separated with a wet _squelch_.

"You found something?" Sam asked, eyebrows climbing high on his forehead.

Dean nodded and spread out the mud on the ground, searching. It didn't take long; the mud seemed to fall away, like whatever he'd found was repelling it. With a few deft flicks of his fingers, a bird skull took shape through the mud.

"Weird," Dean muttered, scooping out the mud from the eye socket with the edge of his thumbnail. He turned his eyes on the pile of mud they'd already dug up, and drew in a hissing breath when he saw it was dotted with little white flecks, dozens of tiny shards of bone. It was the first sign they'd had that life of any kind had ever been here, dead and buried beneath the surface though it was. Hopefully, it was a sign of their changing luck.

"The ground's full of bones?" Sam asked quietly, half to himself, even as he lifted out a delicate ribcage from the mud, the tiny line of its spine swinging idly. "Damn," he cursed, as the tiny ribs fractured apart under the press of his fingers.

"Looks like," Dean agreed. He shivered but pocketed the skull before he started digging again, trying to ignore the brittle slivers of bone his fingers occasionally landed on.

They spent a few more minutes digging in silence, and the hole they were working on got deeper, while the pile of mud and bone grew higher. Dean threw down a handful of mud in disgust and rubbed his dirty hands on his jeans, trying to warm his numb fingers. "This is getting us nowhere," he growled in frustration. "The water we're digging for isn't here. We dig and we dig but all we get is more _mud_."

"Don't forget the bird bones," Sam said tiredly.

Dean shoved himself to his feet and shook out his legs, stiff after spending so long crouched on the cold ground. "We need a new plan," he said, pacing around his brother. Sam watched him with calm, steady eyes, hands resting easily between his knees; _he_ didn't seem to notice the cold.

"We could just start walking," Sam suggested, and ran his hand through his hair. His fingers, covered in mud, caught on the strands and he grimaced then he lowered it to brush off some of the dirt. His eyes flicked up to Dean and he stretched, arms extended upwards toward the hungry sky.

Dean blinked. "Leave it to blind luck? In _Hell_? I don't think so." He dropped down next to his brother and slid his hand down the side of the hole they'd dug. The mud slicked his fingers, thick as clay— but there was no sign of the water that should have started to separate.

Dean sighed in exasperation. "I wish I could remember our research before coming here," he said. "You've always been better at that stuff, but I feel like I'm running blind."

"You and me both," Sam agreed. "Nothing I read said Hell was anything like this."

"No demons," Dean agreed. "Hell, still no damned souls at all— just you and me and a whole lot of dead birds." The lack of progress rankled; their dad wouldn't have gotten hung up on this trivial shit. He always knew what to do, always found a way, even when that meant killing himself for a son who'd have been better off dead.

Sam looked pensive. "You don't think— do you think God saved them?"

Laughter burst out of Dean, harsh and disbelieving. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

Sam's face snapped into a scowl like a switch had been flipped. "It's in the Bible— Jesus? The Harrowing of Hell?"

Dean scoffed. "Don't be naïve, Sam. Even if there was a God, you'd better hope he hasn't sprung a spring cleaning on this place, or else we're down here for nothing. If all the souls are gone, then that means Dad is gone, and we're down here chasing our tails."

"Just because you don't believe—"

"I don't want to talk about this," Dean said. This conversation wasn't going anywhere, and he was going to shut it down. "If you can't think of anything, then I'm going to take a nap. You keep watch. If you see an angel, then you wake me up."

Sam drew in on himself, his expression tight and unhappy, blinking rapidly. Dean was filled with sudden guilt. He didn't want to make his stupid, girly brother _cry_. "Fine. We'll just take a break; you rest and I'll take first watch," Sam said, voice tight.

Dean let his head fall back and stared into the empty sky. "I hate wasting time," he confessed, disheartened.

"We're not making any progress no matter what we do," Sam pointed out, settling himself in with his knees drawn up tight to his chest. He cradled his head on his arms, with his face toward Dean. "You're right, we should get some sleep." He smiled, the expression wan. "Things always look better in the morning, right?"

Dean grunted at Sam and leaned back against the cold mud; he grimaced as the back of neck touched the ground. "Wake me up in a few hours," he sighed as he closed his eyes.

"Sure, Dean." Sam's fingers brushed against Dean's arm; it was comforting, being so close to his brother. Lethargy tugged at his limbs, sudden and surprising. He closed his eyes.

oOo

The Impala smells of leather, gun oil and home.

Dean stretches on the back seat, face chilled from the cold window. Frost has formed on the inside of the glass, but there's a clear patch he can see through to the passing landscape from where his cheek has melted the ice. He inspects the car and smiles at Sammy, who's got his too-long legs hooked over the passenger side seat, elbows tucked in close as he reads from— yeah, Dean's old history textbook from two states back. Dean can never feel guilty about stealing books from school given how happy they make Sammy.

"Yo, twerp, you keep reading like that and you'll get a hump."

"_Keep reading like that and you'll get a hump_," Sammy parrots, not looking up from his book.

Dean gives his brother the stink-eye. "Did you and Dad manage to get into it _without_ waking me up? Colour me surprised."

"_Colour me surprised_," Sammy says, scowling at his book.

"Don't be such a bitch," Dean mutters. He crosses his arms and resists the urge to kick at the back of Dad's seat. If Dad and Sammy'd been fighting he wasn't going to make it worse.

"_Bitch_," Sammy mutters, just barely audible.

They sit in silence, listening to the roar of the Impala's engine. Dad taps one finger against the steering wheel but doesn't say anything. It must have been a bad fight; Dad doesn't usually shut down like this unless he and Sammy'd really gotten into it and that is not something _anyone_ could sleep through.

"Where we goin'?" Dean asks their Dad, the silence digging at him. He wonders where the box of tapes is.

Dad doesn't answer, his expression in the reflection of the rear-view mirror unchanged.

"Dad?" Dean asks, leaning forward. Beside him, Sammy doesn't say a word but flips the pages of his textbook. He kicks the seat in front of him.

"What's wrong with you two?" Dean's starting to get freaked at the silent treatment— Dad and Sammy didn't shut down like this, especially not at _Dean_. They'd talk to him even when they'd ignore each other, using him as a buffer to make sure the family kept working.

They don't answer. Frustrated, Dean leans forward over the seat and grabs his dad's shoulder. "Seriously, what's—"

The thing in the front seat turns to look back at Dean, bone gleaming white in the light of the sun. The skull seems stark against the dark of his dad's hair, too clear, too real. Dean rears back and grabs at his brother's arm, dragging him close to his side when

When


	2. Chapter 2

Dean snapped awake and lurched upward; his chest felt tight with fear, breath wheezing out of him in harsh pants. He covered his face with one hand and took a deep breath, desperate to steady to his breathing before his noises drew Sam's attention.

Sam. Dean lowered his hand and took in his surroundings— the endless fields of mud and a whole lot of nothing else hurtling toward the distant horizon. Sam was there, thank fucking God, listing to the side from his seated position, eyes closed, breathing even. Asleep on watch, but Dean couldn't blame him. Something about this place weighed him down, too. His stomach was knotted tight on itself, hungry for food. It had started to feel like there was a drain in his stomach, sucking down every bit of energy Dean could muster.

Dean stood up, careful to be quiet. There wasn't a chance in— well, Hell— that he'd be going back to sleep. He pressed his thumb and index fingers into his brow, where a low throb had started up behind his eyes. At least it was dark; looking out at the horizon everything seemed dim, and the red light was easy on his eyes.

Instinct had his head turning to look behind him before the flash of movement fully registered. Something was moving out there, disrupting the previously uniform line where earth and sky met.

"Sam!" Dean barked out, already running full stop. At this point he'd take anything, any hint, as long as it meant moving forward. A glance over his shoulder showed him Sam was hot on his heels, long legs slowly closing the gap between them.

Whatever it was, it was watching them— Dean couldn't see its eyes but he could feel its attention, so strong it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. It waited until Dean was just close enough to pick out the shape of its head atop a long, thin neck, staring straight at Dean, and then struck off in the opposite direction, fast as a ghoul.

"Fast little fucker," Dean panted out as he ran, pushing his legs to move faster through the sloppy mud.

"Should we be following it?" Sam yelled out from behind his shoulder. "We don't even know what it is— it could be leading us into a trap!"

"Are you kidding me?" Dean yelled back, adrenaline pumping through him. "At this point I'd welcome a trap!" Dean got ready for pain and put on an extra burst of speed. He could just make out the details of the long cloak it was wearing, the distance between them closing rapidly.

A warning whispered at the back of his mind; they were covering ground too quickly. It felt like they were shooting toward the horizon faster than should have been possible, like they were about to—

"Dean!" Sam yelled and Dean glanced back over his shoulder. His inattention cost him; the mud turned solid and frictionless under his feet; he slipped and fell hard, muscle memory guiding him into a roll.

Dean dug in his heels and forced himself into a stop. "What the fuck," Dean moaned, pushing himself up despite the pain to continue the chase.

"What the _Hell_, more like," Sam said from right behind him.

Dean grimaced but couldn't help but agree; whatever they'd been chasing obviously knew where it was going. The world had changed; they'd been led onto the next level.

They were in a forest; there was no sign of the demon. The air stank of old fire and the trees were blackened and bare. The air was still cold; Dean was pretty sure demons up topside laughed their asses off at all the humans running around talking about Hell freezing over like it hadn't already happened.

"We lost him," Sam commented, fox eyes keen on the trees around them.

"We didn't lose shit." Dean sighed and sniffed, scrubbing at his nose. "If that thing actually crossed some sort of freaky dimensional Hell-gate, it would have disappeared as we were chasing it. It might not even have made it here."

"So you think we're alone?"

"As alone as we are anywhere in Hell." Dean paused, eyes drifting back and forth across the trees around them, looking for any hint of movement. He blinked, and took in the shape of the trees, never straight, but twisted as though they were trapped in the throes of agony; definitely not normal.

"Even the trees are fucked here, huh?" Dean said and reached out to touch the dark spikes emerging from the bark. The bark was covered in them, the larger swells of the thorns themselves covered in tiny barbs. The trunk of the trees shot up out of the ground in huge arcs, branches curling out like thin, clawing limbs before the top of the tree plunged back into the ground. "Growing like sandworms on crack."

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean and reached up, linking his fingers through the ends of a bunch of twigs. The branch swung at the touch, and the creaking sound of protesting wood echoed through the air until the wood stilled again.

"Let's see if your pet rock works here," Dean said, and walked a few feet from Sam to a clear patch of ground. The forest floor was mostly covered in long, thin strips of bark and wood, heavy on the otherwise clear landscape. He knocked aside some of the tinder and put the lodestone on the cleared space. Like on the mud plains, the stone stayed motionless, inert.

Dean cursed quietly and plucked the stone off the ground, ignoring the tingling in his fingers, and shoved it back into his pocket. "All this piece of shit is good for is pissing me off."

Sam joined him in the clearing and kicked one of the planks of wood. "At least it got us through the last level," Sam said, his own frustration clearly audible. "Staying in one place didn't get us anywhere, last time—let's just stick together and move forward."

Dean nodded, hands dug deep into both pockets as he hunched in on himself against the cold. "You're right." He glanced behind his shoulder and tried on a smile for Sam, jerking his head toward the other side of the small clearing. "This way's good as any, right?"

"Then let's go." Sam clapped Dean on the shoulder, the heat of his touching burning through the leather of his jacket, and headed toward the tree line.

They moved through the forest silently, their legs falling naturally into pace with each other's. Dean took point and Sam covered his back, staying within the confines of Dean's blind spot.

There was a strange feeling in the air.

There was no wind; the branches were motionless. This was more than a forest in winter. Dean had long attuned himself to the sounds of undisturbed forests, to the point that his body automatically revved into high gear when a forest was filled with preternatural stillness. This was not a forest whose creatures were afraid of the monster living in its depths— there were no squirrels quivering in their nests, no birds unwilling to sing.

This forest was dead.

The silence got to him, like the insects that couldn't burrow under the bark of the trees had chosen to make a home for themselves under his skin.

Dean was careful to keep his eyes peeled, but slowed enough for Sam to catch up. "It's no darker here than it was out in the open," he said quietly and gestured at the ground. "Even though there's enough light to see by, look." He gestured toward their feet. "Back in the desert there was something, but here? No shadows." He shrugged his shoulders, trying to shake off the cold.

"Maybe in Hell, everyone's their own shadow." Sam's voice was dark; the hard edge that had become more and more frequent since Jessica's death had snuck into it again.

Dean turned his face toward Sam and kept his voice casual. "Feeling a little melodramatic there, princess?"

Sam squared his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "Still unwilling to have a serious conversation?" he snapped back, but didn't draw it out.

Sam only seemed to have two ways to express a bad mood— beating a point to death or pulling out the silent treatment. He was probably going to fall into one of his little sulks like the drama queen he was.

"I don't want to fight, Sam," Dean sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He paused when his fingers hit the line of his t-shirt and then grasped at the front of his shirt. "Shit," he breathed out. He stripped out of his jacket and collared shirt and shook them out. He rubbed his hand down his chest from his neck, searching. "_Shit_."

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, frowning as he watched Dean grope himself.

"The amulet," Dean said. "I can't— it's _gone_."

Sam blinked and looked around the forest floor as though the amulet would just fucking be there on the ground, or something. "You lost it?" he asked hesitantly.

"I don't— the cord must have broken. _Shit_." Dean shoved his hand into one of his jacket pockets, then the other and jerked it back out at the light shock the lodestone sent up his arm. "I don't want to leave it in Hell," he said plaintively.

"I can't believe you lost it," Sam said, voice rising. "What the hell, Dean?"

His throat closed off and he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He spared a last, hopeless look at the ground. "I'm know, but. We just have to keep going forward, right? Find Dad?"

"I notice you didn't manage to lose _his_ gift," Sam snapped, gesturing at Dean's jacket. He shoved himself past Dean, who fell back until his back hit one of the trees.

Touching the tree sent a shudder down his spine. Pain lanced its way through his mind and he blinked away the sudden spots dancing in front of his eyes.

"Dad's jacket isn't attached by a thin leather cord," Dean said. He pushed himself off the tree and wiped his hands on his pants, trying to wipe off the oily film that seemed to have covered them.

"Why would you even bring it with you?" Sam demanded. He circled the clearing and kicked at the wood on the ground.

"Don't pretend I did this on purpose." Dean would never do anything to hurt his brother, no matter what Dad asked, no matter what Sam thought. Fuck him. "Fuck you for thinking that."

Sam stared at him and his face darkened. "Fuck _you_, Dean. I'm taking my chances with the forest." He spun around and stalked away into the trees.

"Like I'm going to let you wander around Hell alone," Dean snapped out. He hurried to catch up with his brother before Sam got further out of reach. "We have to stick together if we're going to find Dad."

"Find Dad, find Dad," Sam echoed. "That's all you've been talking about for _months_, I'm sick of it!"

Dean jerked to a stop. "Well, I'm sorry, I thought that was the whole _fucking_ point of us coming here!" Emotion choked Dean's voice until it was reduced to a furious whisper. "If you didn't want to do this, you should have said something earlier!"

"I DID," Sam shouted. He stopped and spun back around to face Dean, stepping into his reach to push at Dean's shoulder. "You might not remember, Dean, but you didn't want to hear it! If I hadn't thought you'd get yourself killed if you'd come down here alone, I'd have stayed home!"

The tight ball of anger in Dean's throat turned sour. "Don't you care?" he whispered. "How can it not matter to you that Dad— Dad's soul— is in Hell? That's forever, Sam. Unless we save him, he'll be down here _forever_." _Because of me_, he added to himself. Dean couldn't imagine not caring. Couldn't imagine a world where he'd sit back and let Dad, or Sam, stay in fucking Hell when he could do something to save them.

Sam's back straightened at that, bringing him up to his full height and giving Dean the space he needed to breathe. "Don't turn this into that, Dean. This isn't about how I feel about Dad; it's about your _crusade_. It's about you risking your life for a dead man, and it's about me trying to help you and getting dragged into your reckless attempt to martyr yourself instead!"

Dean kept his expression carefully blank, quashing the urge to flinch. He studied Sam; nostrils flared, expression pinched down tight with anger. "What happened that you're not telling me?" The stink of fire rose heavily in the air; the sound of the cracking, dried bark breaking beneath their weight snuck into his ears, overly loud in the silence that stretched between them.

Sam sighed. "Nothing happened, Dean. Or rather— you happened." His voice rose into a sing-song. "Bossy big brother Dean, always needs to have his way, killing himself for Daddy's approval."

Anger rose against the hurt, easy as breathing. The smell of fire in the air was growing stronger. "At least I did more than just hold him back," he snarled. "You were always so busy with questioning Dad you couldn't even see when sitting down and shutting up could have saved lives."

"And you wouldn't be able to question Dad if your life depended on it— how many times did you almost bleed out before you even got back to the hotel? How many lines did you cross at _his_ word?"

"Because you're so squeaky clean," Dean said. "Let's not beat around the bush— he raised us like soldiers and I was the only one who learned to man-up and act like one."

"Soldiers enlist, Dean. Soldiers get to choose that life." Sam was working himself back into a rage, the same rage that had replaced his tears over Jess, and had started waking him from nightmares with his fists swinging instead of with wet cheeks.

"None of us chose this life. We were forced into it when the thing that murdered your _girlfriend_ murdered our _mom_. And instead of getting mad and fighting back, you made Dad into your enemy. If you were really a soldier, you'd have been court-martialed when you _deserted_."

Sam punched him, sudden and unexpected. Dean took the brunt of the hit on his cheek, rolled with it to lessen the force of the hit. His eyes watered, with his own anger more than pain.

"I went to school, Dean. To _college_. Most families would be proud of that!" The trees seemed to shudder, and there was the distant sound of an explosion.

"You weren't going to school, Sam. You were leaving us. Abandoning us. That's desertion—but we're family, so it's worse. Family is supposed to stick together and you left the second you could— you didn't wait, couldn't wait. You _had_ to get away from us!"

A roar started up in the background, faint but growing closer. "I wanted to live a normal life, Dean. I just wanted to be _normal_." As though for emphasis, Sam's words coincided with Dean's sudden awareness that the crackling he could hear was more than just him and Sam stepping around on the debris-strewn earth.

His eyes tracked back, behind his brother, and he tilted his head, smelling the air. The scent hadn't changed, but the air tasted different. When he looked up, the sky was just as dark as ever, completely unhelpful, but he realized he could taste ash on the air, thick and cloying on his tongue. It hurt where it landed on his skin. "Run," he said. He could feel the whites showing around his eyes. "Sam, _run_."

Sam looked confused and then he twitched, spinning around to face the sound coming from the forest behind them. "What is it?" he breathed out, sounding stunned.

Dean grabbed Sam by the shoulders and shoved him forward, keeping himself between Sam and the nearing fire. "It sounds like a fire," he said. "This forest is filled with dead trees just begging to be turned into kindling." Sam finally got with the picture and sped into a run, and Dean stuck close to his heels. "We've got to get out of here—"

At his words, the roar of the fire erupted through the cluster of trees ahead of them. A glance over his shoulder was more than enough to tell Dean they needed to move faster. The fire was crawling across the dirt; it consumed the debris scattered on the ground and moved across the empty space between, spreading quickly as though the earth were coated in accelerant.

"Shit," he cursed. "Sam, we've got to move!"

Sam grunted his agreement and lengthened his stride, the sound of his breath barely audible.

The air stank of filth and the ash was suddenly visible in the air, raining down on them as they ran. It burned through his lungs, like the air itself had become acidic. It mixed with the sweat that had broken out at his hairline, and the water that ran into his eyes burned. The acidity blurred his vision more than sweat alone would warrant and he blinked his eyes as they watered.

Sam stayed within sight for a few burning, breathless seconds and then one of the trees between them exploded with a loud _boom_. Dean stumbled to a stop, transfixed by the suddenly too-clear sight. It almost seemed to happen in slow motion; Dean watched as the tree split down its center and the bark burst free from the wood underneath. Blood poured out from the cracks in the tree, spraying outwards until the forest was painted red.

For one beat, two, there was no sound except the ringing in Dean's ears. Then, with a _whoosh_, the blood ignited. The air shivered with the sudden heat, rippling in an almost visible wave. Dean snapped himself out of his daze and back into motion, following in the direction he'd last seen Sam.

The sound of the fire was bad, but it was the smell of it that got to him, burning through his nose and clouding his mind with old memories.

He'd trained himself out of letting his sense-memory of the night of the fire take over his thoughts. He'd burned hundreds of corpses, used fire as a weapon more times than he could count— but none of that seemed to matter here. Here, all fire made him think of was loss.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and the fear that should have shifted easily to anger, should have honed his mind to a razor's edge, didn't. Instead it hung about in his veins, so his thoughts were sluggish, his motions more a matter of instinct than anything else.

It got worse as he ran, the trees around him blurring together as his heart rate climbed. He couldn't see any trace of Sam, any sign he was going in the right direction. He ran until his lungs hurt, until his thoughts were so tangled he almost forgot why he was running.

But he couldn't forget the fire, the sound and smell of it omnipresent, and it dragged his mind back to the past.

He was chasing and fleeing; searching and hiding. After a few stumbles, who he was chasing blurred in his mind; he was hunting, searching for a monster, for his Dad. He needed to arc out, complete the pincer movement to catch the fucker they were chasing.

The run consumed his attention, the cramps in his legs and tightness of his chest his only points of focus. He struggled to shove aside the distractions of his own thoughts and when that didn't work, he just focused on the movement of his legs.

Dean ran until the sound of his own heartbeat blocked out the maelstrom in his head and red edged into the corners of his vision, and then he kept running. Ducking around and under the pointed branches was easy; the forest melted into every forest he'd ever run through, the built-up fear of a thousand hunts rushing through his veins.

If he kept running, he might hit a barrier. He'd be out of the forest and one step closer to finding Dad. If he could just find his dad, everything would be okay. Dad always made things better, always knew the right thing to do. Dad would know how to rein in his thoughts. The feeling of being stretched too thin which had haunted his steps since the hospital wouldn't last five minutes with Dad there to guide him; the fire wouldn't be able to get him if Dad was there.

Sam was out there in the forest, running from the fire. Dean may have lost sight of him, but if he just kept pressing forward, kept moving forward, he'd find them both. Dad would help him find Sam, or his brother would keep searching with him.

Suddenly, Dean laughed, the sound thready and weak through his strangled breath— Dad would probably beat the shit out of him for losing sight of Sam in the first place, but they'd find him. They always found Sam when he ran away.

Dean slowed to gather his breath next to one of the tree trunks and bent over, panting. He let one hand rest against the tree and leaned there as his mind and vision swam. His sight refused to cooperate and kept trying to focus past the trees, toward the horizon he couldn't see.

Sam would be fine. Dean would find Dad, they would find Sam. Find— Sammy.

Something about that thought spurred him back into motion and he started running again. The sound of the fire surrounded him, too loud for its lack of visibility.

He ran. Ran from the fire, from the nagging suspicion that his brother was gone, gone like Dad, gone like Mom, gone like every single fucking thing Dean had ever cared about. The trees blurred until they lost their Hellish shapes and Dean kept running. He could taste blood in his mouth and choked it down, but couldn't seem to swallow it all no matter how much he tried.

He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings and tumbled down the slope at the edge of the tree line before he could even think to stop himself. He tucked himself into a roll, eyes wide open as he struggled to slow his decent. He managed to get his feet pointed downward when the bank suddenly dropped into a cliff.

Dean was flying over the edge before he even had a chance to try to catch himself.

oOo

Dean's lying in bed in the motel room. Dad and Sam are gone, out— somewhere. He's alone.

He lets his hand trail down his naked chest where it wants to go and sighs, glad for the peace and quiet. He shouldn't be doing this here— at least one of them is going to be sleeping on this bed tonight, and he won't be able to change the sheets, but that's what Kleenex is for.

He cups his cock and lets his thoughts drift, soft curves and tan skin mixing with the stranger, more dangerous— and so of course, more arousing— thought of hard muscle spread across a wide back. His cock swells in his hand and he sighs, wishing vaguely for a helping hand but not enough to go out to find one.

Arousal curls through him, lazy as a day with no PT, and he strokes himself to full hardness. He's right handed, but his cock curls to the left, which causes an extra pull against the base every time he strokes upward.

The lights are on; it's dark outside. He can see a moth, battering against the window, trying to get in.

Dean wonders if he should even bother putting on some porn. It could be nice; give him something solid to focus on, something to add an edge of _need_ to jacking off, since he'd know that he'd have to be fast, make sure the porn was off before Dad and Sam got back.

Dean doesn't want need. He wants a nice, lazy orgasm, and maybe he'd suck his own fingers clean instead of using the Kleenex.

Shit, yeah, that did it. He plays with the head of his cock as it slowly leaks precome, giving him a nice, slick lubricant. He spreads his thighs and cups his balls in his left hand, pulls on them. He almost goes lower— Amanda had been creative enough to make him curious— but leaves that for another time, maybe when he doesn't have a clock ticking away in the back of his skull.

Speaking of clocks, he cranes his neck and looks at the alarm clock on the night table between the beds. It blinks 12:00 at him and he laughs— it figures.

Dean doesn't know when his Dad and Sam are going to be back. He speeds up and dabs lightly at his slit with his left hand as he jerks with his right.

The moth is still battering against the window. His eyes track past it to the dark sky, where the morning star is hanging low and bright on the horizon. Dad and Sam will be back soon, he's sure of it.

He speeds his strokes, letting go of the idea of a lazy jerk-off session— if he keeps it up at this pace he might not get to come at all before the rumble of the Impala ends it for him. He curls over himself, abs clenching, and spits on his cock for more lubricant. The slick slide of his hand feels great, just right no matter the speed—of course, Dean knows just what he likes.

Arousal builds, but he doesn't come. He makes a ring with his index finger and thumb and jerks it over the crown of his cock a few times— can't quite stop the soft moan of pleasure that draws out of him and thrusts his hips a bit, ass clenching.

It feels good— feels _great_. But he's still not getting any closer to orgasm, and he knows he's running out of time. He's got to—

A stinging pain in his cheek intruded and jerked Dean out of his dream with the echoing sound of a slap.

Sensation flooded in; he was lying on uneven ground, with large rocks jabbing into his shoulder blades and hips. Sam's voice was high with anxiety. "Dean, you have to wake up!"

Dean raised his hand to bat away Sam's grip on his shoulders and slowly opened one eye, then the other. "You couldn't find a more subtle way to wake me?" he grumbled.

"You weren't waking up." Sam sat back, balanced easily on his widespread knees. "If I'd been able to find a convenient bucket of water to dump on you, you'd be begging for a little love-tap."

"You try that line on all the girls, Sammy?" Dean shifted upright and slid himself back on the rock, putting extra distance between them. A raging headache was making its presence felt behind his eyes; he ran his hands over his head and grimaced at the tacky feeling of blood clotting in his hair, then looked around with a dull sense of resignation.

The cliff he'd fallen down stretched up on his left, the roots of the forest they'd come from clearly visible where they emerged from the cliff-face; they were dark, twisted and cancerous looking. The submerged trunks of the trees from the ground above were visible toward the top, huge wooden loops bursting from the cliff-face just as they had from the forest floor. There was no sign of smoke; no sign of fire.

"I'm sorry about— what I said." Sam sounded timid, like he was afraid—like he was afraid of Dean.

Dean looked back over his shoulder at his brother and smiled automatically, easy as always for Sam. It fell into something more genuine at the expression on Sam's face, desperately contrite. "Don't worry about it." He pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand. "We both said things we didn't mean. Something about that forest," he trailed off and shook his head. The anger and fear that had felt so consuming just a few minutes ago was gone. "It was messing with our heads."

"Right," Sam said, and then again, more firmly. "Right. Still. Sorry." He took Dean's hand and pulled himself up. It felt like every time he did this, Dean had to pull harder to offset Sam's larger weight.

Dean punched Sam lightly in his shoulder. "Bitch."

"Jerk," Sam laughed and slapped at Dean's head.

Just like that, things were back to normal. They spent a few long minutes grinning at each other like idiot monkeys, and then Sam's eyes drifted over Dean's shoulder and widened in shock.

"Dean..." Sam didn't need to add anything else; Dean was already craning his neck back to look behind him. What he saw made his breath catch.

It was a city. Whether it had been there before or not, Dean couldn't say— he hadn't seen it, but Sam had been facing that direction the entire time and hadn't said a word. The base of the cliffs flattened, but there were no plains here. As soon as the ground leveled out, massive walls shot out of the ground, expanding out to the sides toward the horizon, one long, unbroken line that faded into the distance. It was beautiful, sprawling, with arched domes and pointed towers stretching out as far as Dean could see. The buildings were stacked atop one another, so the land seemed slanted upwards and the streets stood out as bright ribbons through the buildings as they wove their way through. There was a gate directly in front of them, open to a road so smooth it could have been paved, plunging inward and upward through the city.

"Is that...?" Sam's voice trailed off into uncertainty.

"The city whose name was Dis," Dean named it, voice numb. "Dad was nuts about it for a while, do you remember? He was convinced that the Yellow-Eyed son of a bitch had something to do with this place. He couldn't find out much— demons don't tend to be talkative, especially about their so-called," he made air quotes, let his voice rise in parody, "'holy city'."

"I read about it before we came here. Most hunters don't think it exists," Sam pointed out. He walked up to the open gate and laid his hand against the wood. He made a soft noise of surprise and turned his hand back over; his palm was coated in a slick layer of blood.

"Most hunters would also say you couldn't walk two steps in Hell without stepping in a pile of demon shit." Dean dragged his eyes from the skyline to look at their way into the city. "But you're right— something feels off." He glanced at Sam's hand, where the blood had already dried. "If this is Hell's city, we shouldn't be able to just," he waved his hands, "walk in."

"I don't see any people inside," Sam said. He brushed the already-flaking blood off on his jeans and took a tentative step into the city. "Woah," he said. He swayed on his feet and stumbled back, out of the archway.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked. He stepped forward, sliding his body smoothly between Sam and the gate.

"Nothing." Sam shot Dean a smile. "It's just— hot. In the city."

"Hot?" Dean repeated, filled with sudden delight. "That's the first good news I've heard all day."

Sam shot him a slant-eyed look and propped his hands onto his hips. "You won't be saying that when you cross the threshold."

Dean didn't bother to argue. "Let's go, Sam. Dad's not going to find himself."

They stepped through the gate.

oOo  
>It was like walking into a model of an ancient European village. The road was the same unpaved red dirt as they'd found in the rest of Hell, but the buildings were a mixture of black wood and white stone, artistry obvious in the spiralling columns that supported their roofs. They passed by statues of humans, their expressions twisted in agony so they resembled nothing so much as gargoyles. There were fountains, but they were dried and cracked, white stone covered by baked red dust.<p>

The city was more than hot, it was fucking _boiling_. There was no sun but it still felt like they were being baked beneath it, and the buildings didn't cast shadows for them to take refuge in, even as their own stretched out in front of them. Dean had broken out in a sweat the moment they'd stepped inside; his mind felt sluggish, like the city had coated his thoughts in a fever-haze. The cold that had seeped into his bones from the previous levels wasn't easy to shake off and sweat made his skin feel clammy.

Dean stripped out of his jacket and tucked it under his arm. He shot a look at Sam, who looked blank for a long moment and then laughed.

"I told you— it was just the forest. I know you would never—" He shook his head.

"Damn straight I wouldn't. And this place is going to have to do a lot worse than _heat_ to make me lose anything else." Dean tightened his grip on the leather.

Sam was already down to his T-shirt and his skin shone a dark tan in the perpetual glow, his flannel overshirt abandoned next to a crumbling statue a few miles back. "Just don't ask me to carry it for you."

"As long as you don't start whining about being cold," Dean shot back. He would have continued— the gentle ribbing was pretty much the only thing stopping him from freaking out over their utter lack of progress— but the sound of rubble shifting in the distance shut him up quickly. "There it is again," he said darkly.

"Definitely following us," Sam agreed.

"You think it's the same thing we chased into the forest?" Dean asked, careful not to look behind him. Neither of them had caught sight of whoever, or whatever, was following them yet. Dean was hoping they'd be able to lull the thing into complacency, catch it off guard. Since they'd stopped shooting glances over their shoulders the sound of shifting rubble had grown more frequent— whoever was following them was getting sloppy.

"Could be." Sam ran his fingers through his hair and the sweat kept the strands in place, slicked back off his face. It was a strange look on him; Sam tended to prefer the shaggy-haired dog look. Sam sighed, and stared up at the rising city in front of them. "What do you want to bet that she knows the way out of here?"

_She?_ "No bet," Dean said. "We need a plan. The scenery's changing, but we're practically chasing our own tails, here. There's no way to know how many levels we'll have to get through before we find Dad— there's no way to know that we _will_ find Dad. We haven't seen a single sign that we're on the right path. How do we know the Orpheus spell took us to the right place? How do we even know this is Hell?"

Sam made a frustrated noise. "We can't know. But if we're on the wrong path, that doesn't change what we have to do— go forward. There's no going back." He kicked at the surface of the road; the first layer brushed away to show a brighter shade of, you guessed it, more red-fucking-dirt.

oOo

The buildings changed as they made their way deeper into the city, decorative columns and fountains replaced by plain white walls and square, squat buildings made entirely of stone. Their doors were the same black wood as they'd seen in the forest, and gave off the same feeling of slime when Dean touched them. The square windows showed only empty rooms, free from any sign of occupation. They could have passed for model homes but for the fact that gave off the eerie feeling of abandonment, the same crawling sense of wrongness that Dean had learned meant there was a ghost nearby. He put his jacket back on despite the heat, wanting the extra layers between himself and their surroundings.

They approached a sharp bend in the road and Dean considered their options. There was a low wall, and the edge of the roof above it looked like it could be reached if he stretched up. He jogged ahead of Sam and jumped on top of the wall, quick and quiet on his feet. Sam followed him, stepping up with ease with his longer legs.

Sam crouched down and gave Dean a boost up toward the roof above , then accepted the hand Dean stuck out for him to take. Sam's weight crumbled the edge under his boot as he pushed himself up, and the air filled with a small cloud of dust.

From the higher vantage point of the roof they could get a better look at the features of the city. The rooftops were mostly flat, strangely uniform. The buildings at the apex of the city were outlined against the dark sky, curved roofs and high, straight steeples a sudden break in the architecture style.

"That look like a church to you, Sam?" Dean asked, raising his hand to block the absent sun out of long-engrained habit. The tops of the churches would be easily visible from the ground, and even if a building blocked them from sight they were at the highest point of the city, so all you'd have to do to get to them was head uphill.

"That looks like a bunch of churches," Sam agreed from behind Dean's shoulder. His voice was strained, tight with the faint, anxious hope Dean recognized from years of Sam spending too much time with Pastor Jim. Dean didn't get comfort from churches topside, let alone in Hell. "It's gotta be some sort of focal point for the city," Sam surprised Dean by saying. Dean should have known better; Sam's big brain wouldn't let the sight of some random building get the better of him when they were in the middle of a job. Dean jerked his head back toward the street.

"As good a place as any to meet up."

Sam flashed him a smile, dimples carved deep into his cheeks. "Betcha I'll get there first." Before Sam finished speaking he was dropping down back to street level. Dean counted the seconds it would take for Sam to run out of earshot and chuckled overly-loud to cover any sound of Sam's escape. His laughter echoed quietly through the streets and he struck off toward the center of the city; he knew Sam would double-back around in an attempt to trap their tail between them.

Dean turned his attention toward the edge of the building and threw himself into a run, jumping across the space between one building and the next. He focused his attention on speed, rather than stealth. He didn't let his focus drift toward the quiet sounds of pursuit— he couldn't look like he was aware he was being followed. He took a moment to be thankful the demon was cooperating with their manoeuvre, thankful he didn't have to worry about Sam getting followed.

It kept him from thinking about Sam, wandering through the streets on his own.

The buildings were built close together; jumping from one rooftop to another was easy, but their upward slant made his thighs burn. The building's roofs lined up neatly as they moved up the slope, not a single one shorter than the one before, easy to reach. His shoulders ached from pulling himself up, but it barely slowed him down; he was no stranger to a rough-terrain chase.

He ate up the distance more quickly than he would have thought, already able to see the gap between the last of the flat buildings and the cluster of churches, could almost make out the symbols on the limp hanging flags. He slowed to a trot and glanced down at the thin alley between his rooftop and the next. It looked to be a good twenty-foot drop, and he sucked in a long breath.

Slowing down made his skin flush and the oppressive heat slammed back into his awareness. He pulled his shirtsleeve tight until it covered his hand and wiped at the sweat on his brow.

He blinked down at his sleeve, bemused, when he saw that it was stained dark. He'd somehow forgotten that he'd been covered in ash from the forest fire. Sam hadn't said anything— hadn't been covered in the same kind of filth Dean guessed now covered him. Hell, Dean's clothes looked clean. It didn't make sense that he'd be sweating out the ash _now_.

Dean shoved the thought away. He had a job to do, and the ash wasn't burning like it had in the forest, so he could ignore it.

He stepped onto the ledge at the edge of the rooftop and gripped it to brace himself as he slid his legs over the side. The muscles in his arms protested as they took his entire weight, and he sucked in a deep breath as he lowered himself down until he was hanging flat against the side of the building.

He dropped to the ground and rolled with the impact, dust clouding the air in his wake. It combined with the sweat from his skin to create a thin paste on his skin, and he took a moment to wipe it off, listening carefully the whole time. He could just hear the distant sound of another body dropping to the ground.

He jogged toward the churches and stopped in shock when he reached the open space in front of the church. The demon they'd been trying to draw out and corner was standing on the threshold of a huge, domed church. His shadow stretched out before him, long and dark, and shrunk as he approached the doors. They were open and absurdly massive, more than three stories high. The dim light of Hell didn't penetrate through the doorway, so it gaped open onto blackness, like the maw of a huge beast. He moved forward slowly.

The demon shone bright against the black backdrop, and Dean took in its details carefully. It was humanoid; two sets of limbs, what looked like fingers and toes, but its head marked it as the monster it was. It had the head of a vulture, bare and black, with a long, red beak. As he got closer, he could see that its pupils were the huge, overwhelming pupils of a shark, dark like a demon's. It wore a cloak, but the first hint of feathers was visible peaking out from the collar, the same hungry black as the sky.

Without a sound, it stepped back into the doorway and disappeared.

"Son of a bitch." If what he'd heard following him through the streets had actually been Sam, then there was no way to tell how long it would take his brother to catch up. They'd failed to trap the demon, and the longer Dean spent waiting for Sam the more time the demon had to escape.

Not that it seemed too worried about escaping. The thought was hard to avoid; Dean had been running around the different levels of Hell for what seemed like hours, chasing after what boiled down to Dad's ghost, hoping without cause that every level down was bringing him closer to his goal rather than farther away from it, but the only thing they'd encountered here was the bird-monster. The only sign that they were in anything other than a fucking _box_, cut off from everything but each other, and it wasn't acting like it should have. This thing— demon, monster, whatever— didn't act like any demon Dean knew, like prey being chased or predator stalking.

This thing was baiting him.

If Dean were acting as bait, he would make sure once he was caught it would only happen in a place where he would have the upper hand. This thing hadn't yet let Dean get close enough to be a danger, but had still managed to lure Dean to the church with all the skill of a will-o'-the-wisp.

Dean stood just to the side of the doors and considered his options. He knew he should wait for Sam. Knew that following this thing, whatever special brand of demon it was, wasn't the smart thing to do, but at the end of the day, Dean needed answers, and Sam was smart enough to figure out where he had gone. He pressed his hand to the clean white stone of the wall, palm down, and nodded at the hand print left behind. Sam would get the message.

Hell hadn't separated them yet; he didn't believe they'd stay apart for long. This thing wanted his attention and Dean wasn't about to disappoint. He'd been itching for a fight since long before Hell, and wasn't about to back down from a clear challenge.

He sucked in a deep breath, shuddered at the faint smell of rot that seeped out from the doorway, and stepped inside.


	3. Chapter 3

There was light inside, so bright it hurt his eyes. Dean stood in place, struck blind, blinking wildly as his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden shock of light after hours spent in perpetual darkness.

Once his eyes adjusted, he found himself at the edge of a massive room. The ceiling stretched out above him, its curvature joining in the center around a massive skylight, painted in an intricate geometric pattern. The room was circled by dozens of arched doorways, the door Dean had stepped through just one of many. Sunlight poured in from them in bright streams, but Dean had no shadow, the floor marked only by the bright white tiles which spiralled inward toward the center without a sign that they'd ever been walked on, pure and immaculate. He glanced behind himself at the door he'd just come through and had to shield his eyes against the strength of the light, too bright to see through to the other side.

A throat cleared behind him, and Dean snapped his neck back to front and center. On the other side of the room was the creature. The sound it had made echoed in the massive space, though its feet made no noise as it glided across the room toward him. It moved with an inhuman ease, rolling and smooth, so effortless it seemed like it should have been moving at a snail's pace.

As it drew closer, Dean could see the colours of its features for the first time. Its long, hooked beak was tilted up proudly, bright red fading into black scales. It straightened itself up to its full height as Dean watched, the folds of its skin smoothing out with the motion. In its strange, alien head, its eyes—solid green against the black—shone bright and strangely human.

"Hello, Dean," it said. The thing's voice was low, but unmistakably feminine. It had a strange, raspy quality that reminded Dean of the talking parrot bits he'd seen on television, so familiar it had the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

"Aw shucks, you've heard of me," Dean snarked. He felt naked without a weapon, wished fervently for the Colt. Adrenaline had pushed back the nagging sense of fatigue, but it lurked at the corner of his awareness, waiting for him to falter so it could consume him.

The demon's features twisted, the beak cartoonish as it morphed into a sardonic smile. "Oh yes," she said, the rasp amping up. "The famous Dean Winchester— isn't that it? And you're wondering which stories I've heard, yes? Do I know you as the Hunter? The Seal? The Vessel? So many possibilities, yes."

Dean narrowed his eyes in an attempt to cover his confusion. "Seems you know a lot," he said, testing the waters.

The she-demon laughed. "More than you, dear one," she said. It wasn't right, mirth shining so obviously on an inhuman face.

Confusion shifted easily to aggression, and his lip curled up into an angry snarl. "So. You got me here. Are you going to get to the point, or are you just going to keep fucking around?" He hated that every fucking demon they met seemed to think it was some _great joke_ to give him a pet name. Meg had squeezed every last vestige of fondness he'd ever had from _Deano_, and now this fucker thought it could use his MOM'S names against him? Not a fucking chance. "You wanted to talk to me, clearly. So talk."

The demon's head rotated sideways on its neck, farther than a human's bones would allow. "Down to business, is it? Before even learning my name?" she hummed. "Very well," she said. "This is the City of Dis. If you wish to continue, you will need to leave your brother behind." Her neck stayed craned, showing no sign of discomfort.

Goosebumps ran across Dean's skin, sending the hairs on his arms, hands and back standing upright. He smirked at the demon. "I'm not leaving my brother, dipshit. You'd better start trying harder if you're trying to pull one over on me."

She straightened her neck. "You won't even ask why?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders. "Doesn't matter why," he said. "You obviously haven't heard much about me if you think I'd leave my brother behind on the word of a demon."

She didn't reply, considering his answer. "You are already separated from him now," she said, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. "You could continue forward— the next step is so close." She gestured behind herself as she spoke, and Dean could do nothing but watch dumbly as the room they were in changed.

The tiled floor heaved and fell abruptly, taking on the familiar shape of a sinkhole. The ground under Dean's feet trembled, and Dean scrambled back as the tiles at the center of the room fell inward. The hole grew, pieces of the floor dropping away from the center and tumbling into nothingness. There was no sound of breaking stone, no audible sign that it was happening at all; the hole just grew, silently. The floor shuddered again and with a great shuddering sound section of floor the demon was standing on dropped down an easy ten feet, removing her from his sight.

Dean snapped his head back and forth in a search for safety. The tiles under his feet moved, sliding through the mortar as though floating on water. Dean stayed light on his feet, practically hopping in order to stay upright.

Finally, the ground stilled. Dean's heartbeat throbbed loudly in his ears. He walked toward the edge where the floor dropped away, slowing as the demon's bald head came into view. She looked just the same, apparently undisturbed by her sudden drop. He stopped at the edge of the floor.

"You see?" she said, motioning toward the plunging hole the center of the room had become. "The last step on your journey is just a jump away." She was standing on a ledge the width of a sidewalk, which then dropped down again. Dean could see the pattern repeating on the other side of the hole, ledges dropping further and further down toward the center, the distance between each ledge and the next larger than the last.

Dean boggled at her. "Asking a bit much, aren't you? You lurk around like a freaked out groupie for a few days, and when you show up you ask that I abandon my brother in Hell to take a _literal leap of faith_ into a hole in the ground you somehow managed to make? If you're trying to build some kind of trust to set me up later, you're doing a shit job of it."

She blinked her green eyes at Dean. "You haven't realized?" she asked, her voice bemused.

Dean hated it when they tried to sound human. "Realized what?"

She stepped up to the drop that separated them, reaching up high to curl her fingers over the corner of the floor. Dean had the sneaking suspicion if she'd had longer limbs she'd be trying to touch his foot. He leaned back but left his feet planted where they are; no matter how weird the bitch acted, he wasn't going to let her out of his sight.

The demon stared up at him, her eyes shining and bright. "That thing you're travelling with is not your brother, Dean."

"Dean!" Sam's voice echoed suddenly through the room, bouncing down the depths of the hole, filling it with echoes of Dean's name.

Dean didn't turn to look for his brother— Sam's voice was too quiet for him to be close and held the empty quality that Dean knew meant Sam was at least a floor away, if not outside the building completely. Moreover, he knew better than to turn his attention away from the enemy. "In here!" he yelled out, just in case his brother had managed to reach the citadel.

The sound of footsteps rang through the room, growing steadily closer.

"You need to listen to me," the vulture-demon said, filled with a sudden haste. Its voice was strange in its anxiety, more inhuman with the rise of stress. "That thing is not your brother, and if you stay with it, you will never reach your goal."

Sam's voice called out Dean's name again, tight and near-panicked. "Dean!" He was closer than before, his voice ringing out more clearly; definitely inside now, but not coming from behind, as though he'd come through a different doorway than Dean.

"I'm not going to listen to your bullshit," Dean said, settling himself with barely a thought. "You slime balls have been trying to play the 'Sam's evil' card for months, but I know my brother and there's not an evil bone in his body."

Dean's words seemed to shock the demon. "Are you so blind?" she asked, almost to herself. "The two of you have faced down the apocalypse— can you not see the thing you were travelling with is nothing more than a shade?" Dean didn't like how the demon kept talking about shit that had never happened. No matter how you sliced it, he and Sam had never been through an _apocalypse_. The demon rose onto whatever it had for toes, rocking up an extra few inches, her clawed fingers almost able to touch the tip of his boot.

"Demons lie," Dean said, an automatic reaction. It reassured him to say the words out loud, a reminder to both himself and the thing in front of him.

She sighed. "Except for when the truth will do more damage," she said, finishing the thought, and lowered her hands.

Dean scoffed. "Please. We're in Hell; you've got the head of a bird and the talons to match. Really, you things should at least _try_ to be believable. Looking human might have helped."

The demon looked down, and the feathers around its neck swayed despite the lack of breeze. She raised her head and met Dean's gaze. "My form reflects the damage done to my spirit," she said, voice quiet and sure. "But do not think that _inhuman_ means _demon_ here, anymore than having a body signals a soul."

Sam burst through one of the doors across the room, divided from Dean by the giant sinkhole. "Dean!" he cried, his relief palpable in his voice.

The long-familiar tightness of being separated from Sam faded with his brother's entrance. "Over here, Sam!" he called back.

Dean watched out of the corner of his eye as Sam inspected the great well that divided them and came upon the dark form of the she-demon. "You okay there, Dean?" he asked, tension clear in his voice.

The demon cast a look filled with anger and, to Dean's confusion, grief, at his brother. "You cannot go through this place, Sam," she said, voice strangely sad.

Sam narrowed his eyes and jumped to the first level down, the same one the demon stood on. He moved forward silently, unafraid despite the complete lack of cover provided by the bare ground. "I seem to be _going through_ just fine," Sam said, eyes locked on the demon.

Dean moved a handful of steps closer to Sam and dropped himself down to the ledge, making sure to stay out of the demon's reach.

The demon's bare skull shone under the bright lights of the room, glinting brightly as she turned her head back and forth, looking from Dean to Sam and back again. "You have both forgotten," she said, and locked her gaze on Dean. "You have forgotten why you are here, and your faith has forged you the perfect distraction in him."

"You need to stop talking now," Dean said, listening intently for the sound of Sam's approach. Sam's movements were deliberately loud as he stepped hard into the ground so Dean could track him without looking away from their enemy.

Sam scraped his foot against the tile as he got within arm's reach and stepped into place at Dean's side. He took the side closer to the edge, little fucker— probably could tell Dean wasn't going to be getting any closer to the edge than he had to. He was done with falling off shit in this place.

"You okay?" Dean couldn't help but ask, unable to give Sam his typical inspection.

"Fine," Sam said, voice as quiet as Dean's. "She must have figured out our plan— I never even saw her once I doubled back."

Dean grunted in acknowledgment. "Well?" he asked the demon. "You have anything to say to my brother? Try to separate the two of us— maybe you'll just jump down the nice big hole and hope we'll follow you?"

The demon's expression was strange, shifting from a hungry longing as she looked at Sam to resignation and dismissal. The fact that her emotions were so clear, so distinct, despite the inhuman face, was annoying as hell. "It would do me no good to go through to the next plane on my own," she said. "Just as it would do you no good to attempt to go through accompanied by _that_."

Sam reared back as though struck. "I'm human," he grit out, defensive and angry.

"You are _nothing_," the demon hissed at him, eyes flashing. The feathers around her neck shivered. "You are a _lie_, a mockery of Sam Winchester." Her eyes flicked to Dean and narrowed. "A better mockery than most," she acknowledged, then trailed off and stared at Dean.

The demon was close, practically pressed up against him, faster than Dean could blink. He reared back, but not before her clawed hand snapped forward to plunge into his left jacket pocket.

Sam yelled in warning and moved forward, hand outstretched, but had barely lifted his open hand before she darted under his arm and plunged her hand, clenched around something, into his chest.

"No!" Dean shouted, barely paying attention to the demon as she drew her empty hand back out of Sam's chest. There was no hole where her hand had done in; no rip in his shirt. Before Dean had a chance to react, Sam fell to his knees, face broken open. He flickered, like a ghost, and black cracks spread out from the center of his chest, over his clothes as though he were a marble statue. The demon gripped Dean's wrist between her clawed fingers, but Dean was frozen even without the grip. The cracks spread across Sam's body, until he looked like a sun-damaged painting come to life.

"Dean?" he asked, as the cracks reached his face. A piece of his cheek fell to the floor and cracked, and then the lines across Sam's body exploded, taking his brother with him. Dean stared. All that was left of Sam was a pile of broken shards on the floor.

Dean turned his eyes on the demon and knew the broken pieces of his brother were reflected in his eyes. "What did you just do?" he asked, completely numb. "What did you _do_?"

The demon released his wrist and stepped back over to the pile of debris that used to be Dean's brother. The pieces had somehow lost their distinctive shapes, and the pile now held nothing that looked like it could have once been part of a human body— they were featureless, blank white pieces of ceramic. She crouched down, her long robe pooling around her, and shifted the pile. It took her only a moment to find what she was looking for, and she drew it out gently, so the pile was undisturbed.

She held out her finding to Dean, and it took a moment for the item on her palm to register with Dean. It was the lodestone Sam had given him after he woke up from the river.

"This was the focal point that mirage used to fine-tune his illusion," she said softly, stroking over the smooth black edges. "He used your own memories, your own _beliefs_, to fool you." She handed it to him and drew back so his fingers wouldn't touch her claws. It didn't feel the same; it was light, now, and inert. His nerves screamed with remembered static, but it was nothing more than the ghost of a memory.

Dean felt sick. It was too much; his thoughts couldn't process. Sam was gone; worse, had _never been here_. "Where is he?"

The demon looked up at him, expression deliberately blank.

"My brother— where. Is. He?" Dean dropped the rock and moved forward to grip the she-demon's arm in a firm grip; he could feel the bones in her arm, brittle and thin. Dean wasn't in the mood for games. His work had just doubled— he still had to find Dad and now he had to find Sam, too.

She tugged her arm loose without any sign of effort. "That is a complicated question."

"I'm ready for a complicated answer," Dean challenged, voice firm.

The demon shook her head. "It will need to wait." The low sound of wind started running through the room, emerging from the pit as a wail. "It's time."

Dean didn't trust her. Didn't trust her convenient arrival, her oh-so helpful knowledge, the fact that Sam was _gone_ because of her. But he didn't need to trust her to know she was right. The only way forward was down. He shivered, and distracted himself with a nicety he didn't usually bother with when it came to demons. "What is your name, then?" he asked.

"Aset," she replied, and cupped her hand around his elbow, leading him to the edge. "Yes, my name is Aset."

She used her grip on his elbow to send him tumbling off the edge and into the abyss.

oOo

It wasn't a fall. Dean forced himself to remain aware as the world changed around him this time, and it didn't feel anything like falling. The light from above shrunk down to one incredibly bright, cold point of light; Dean passed through it and its freezing light seemed to reach into the very depths of him, but without the comforting numbness cold was meant to bring.

He hadn't realized he had closed his eyes, but he opened them to the feeling of his soul thawing even as the rest of him froze; the air of this place could put out a new patent on the concept of cold. Dean shivered and struggled with his rapidly freezing fingers to button his coat. His breath fogged on the air and turned immediately to snow, which fell lightly to the ground below.

For the first time since he had arrived in Hell, there was something to see in the sky. It was a star, bright and beautiful, hanging low over the horizon. Directly beneath it there were two massive, hulking structures, too irregular to be buildings, erupting out of a black lake. Their shadows, cast into definition by the star, stretched out all the way across the water to the shore.

Dean knew better than to look behind him for the city— if Hell had taught him nothing else, it was that there was no going back. Instead, he focused his attention on the water in front of him. It was utterly motionless, as though the surface had never been stirred into waves.

"Come," Aset said as she walked to the edge of the lake. "Lost souls don't rescue themselves, and if you remain here too long you will come to harm." She sounded far too cheery to be walking around the deepest level of Hell.

Dean was about to protest going into the lake— the water in Hell had done him no favours so far— but shut his mouth when Aset stepped _onto_ the water, rather than into it.

"There's no need to worry, Dean. This lake has been frozen for hundreds of years." Her strange, birdlike voice was deeper than usual, and Dean realized she was laughing at him.

He poked at the edge of the water with his boot and found, despite its clarity, that she was right— it was completely frozen. He stepped onto the ice slowly. It wasn't like any frozen lake he'd walked on before— the only snow came from his breath, while the ice had frozen clear. In the distance the lake looked black, but he could see what was underneath his feet, like he was walking on an invisible road. He could see faint, unmoving outlines of creatures in the water, though it was too dark to make out any details.

They were headed toward the hulking masses in the center of the lake. "What are they?" Dean asked.

Aset shot him an indecipherable look over her beak. "Those are angels."

Dean stopped in place. "_What?_ Those— they're huge!" Angels aren't real, he didn't say. Angels didn't belong in Hell, he didn't say.

Aset nodded her agreement, but didn't stop. "These are their true forms. On earth, they possess the bodies of the faithful."

"What are they doing _here_?" he asked, eyes glued to the angels, even as he hurried to catch up. His mind veered away from the significance of the angels, trapped down here in Hell forever with the rest of them. He didn't believe in God; there was no way he'd let himself fall back into that old, familiar rage.

Aset tilted her head to the side, considering him. "The one under the star is Lucifer," she said, off hand. "He has been here for... a long time. The other is Michael. He came with your brother." She paused. "It's a long story."

Dean let himself digest that for a moment. "And let me guess— you're not going to tell it to me."

There was no reply from the demon. She had frozen, eyes fixed on something ahead. Her beak opened and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath before she burst into a sprint.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, chasing after her.

The ice wasn't hard to run on; it should have slid out from under the tread of Dean's boots, but it was just as easy to run on the surface of the lake as on a freshly paved road. The good conditions didn't do him any good; the distance between him and the demon rapidly grew.

A loud, keening wail made its way to Dean's ears over the lake and he slapped his hands over them in an attempt to block out the sound. "What the fuck are you doing?" Dean yelled.

Aset ignored him, and the wail continued, spreading across the open air of the lake like a fog. It petered out when Aset fell to her knees near the base of one of the _(angels)_structures. As he got closer, the sound of ice being chipped— clawed— away reached his ears.

His steps slowed into silence, hunter-quiet. Any time a monster acted so out of character it meant trouble, and Dean didn't want to be caught in the backlash.

Dean waited for a change, but when Aset just kept digging at the ice, he edged closer. "Aset? You okay?" he asked, circling around. Aset wasn't totally crazy— there was definitely something down there in the ice, past what his eyes could make out, the clear surface having been scratched to white opacity.

There was no answer; despite the shards of broken talons discarded near the pit she had dug, Aset didn't stop. A few drops of blood splashed out on the ice from Aset's claws and froze on the surface on contact with the ice, lifting off from the ice like grotesque pieces of confetti.

Dean wasn't expecting it when, with a loud _crack_, the ice beneath Aset came apart, a fissure snapping out past Dean and off toward the center of the lake. Dean jerked back from it with a start as a huge puff of steam rose from the crack, expanding through the air and turning to snow. The snow fell down around the pair of them, clinging like crystals to Aset's feathers and catching in Dean's own eyelashes.

The ice had parted to reveal a head in the ice.

"Jesus Christ!" Dean shouted, jumping back. It was the head of a kid, strangely familiar. Short cropped hair frosted with snow, blue eyes, frozen and staring up into Aset's face, beseeching her as though she could save him. The skin was sunken and dried, like a well-preserved mummy. Dean's eyes snapped to his feet and the shadows hidden within the ice— people, he realized with a sickening lurch. Those were _people_, frozen beneath the ice. "Is this where all the souls in Hell go?" he demanded, voice shaking.

"It's not him," Aset sighed to herself, and then louder, "No." She caressed the sharp cheekbone, expression clearing to a more general sorrow. She shivered and snow fell from her feathers. She breathed in deeply and came back to herself. She looked back over her shoulder and the silhouette of her red beak against their surroundings did the same for Dean, giving him a point to focus on. "This place is reserved for betrayers— Lucifer made it his own, and his nature traps those he ranks next to himself."

Dean's eyes tracked back to the head; disturbingly, the thing had started leaking tears, which froze on contact with the air, crusting over the eyes with a thin film of ice as clear as the lake water. "Is my dad down here, then?"

Aset tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Dean, then shook her head. The feathers around her thin, leathery neck swayed silently with the movement. "I told you— what that _thing_ pretending to be your brother told you was a lie. John isn't here, Dean. He's never been here. You've been sent on a wild goose chase."

Rage exploded inside him like a switch had been flipped. "Then what the FUCK am I even doing in Hell?" Dean demanded. He clenched his hands into fists, hoping to hide their shaking— it didn't matter if it were from anger, he would _not_ show weakness.

Aset's too-green eyes looked at him, sad. "You're here looking for the one you lost," she said gently.

"The only one I've _lost_ is my dad!" Dean couldn't stand this ambiguous bullshit anymore. "Unless you're saying I'm here after— after my _mom_, then you're just a lying sack of shit. How do I know my brother isn't still back in the city, waiting for me?"

Dean's words seemed to startle Aset; she blinked at Dean without answering for a few long, drawn out moments before she said, "The thing travelling with you was never your brother— but it did tell you one truth. You did cross the River Lethe. As you did, your memories flowed away with its waters."

Despair rose in his mind and coated his thoughts in a filthy, depressing film. "If you can tell me that, why won't you just answer me? _What._ Am I. _Doing here?_"

Aset sighed, a strange huff of breath puffed out from her beak. "You came here for your brother, Dean— for Sam."

Dean froze. "Sam's dead?" he managed, voice strangled. That little phrase contained every nightmare he'd ever had, the horrid potential outcome of every mistake he'd ever made. It meant that no matter what he'd ever hoped to achieve, he was a failure. Utterly, profoundly— a failure.

"Not anymore," Aset said. She reached out toward Dean's face as though to comfort him and Dean let her, desperate for her words to be true. "His body is back on Earth— you're here for his soul."

"What happened?" Dean asked. His chest felt carved out, set adrift without a purpose.

Aset shook her head. "That is a long story that doesn't need telling— you'll remember once you've returned."

Dean's eyes sharpened. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

She smiled. "I've been watching you since you arrived," she said, voice low. "The effects of the Lethe are enhanced inside this place." She laughed, and the sound was bitter. "Leaving this cage has a price. Its nature has been so corrupted that leaving it comes with a guarantee that you'll have access to anything and everything that could turn a soul dark."

"_Cage_?" Dean asked, eyebrows snapping together. "Must be the shittiest cage in the world; demons are clawing their way out of here twenty-four seven." He looked around the lake they were on, and the empty horizon seemed suddenly much closer. A wave of dizziness ran through Dean and he blinked it away in irritation. He'd thought he'd be done with the wooziness after he ditched the lodestone, but apparently not.

Aset's eyes warmed and the red beak reshaped itself into that same cartoonish smile. "Demons don't escape from here, Dean. Nothing has ever _escaped_. You're either released, or you stay. This is not the Hell your demons know, that they try so desperately to avoid. This place is more than a cage— it's a box, taped up tight and left behind the day you move. Once, a long time ago, this place," she waved her hand at the lake, the towering angels frozen above their heads, "was all there was to Hell. But once God dropped out of the picture, the angels needed a place to put the demons where they wouldn't have the chance for escape." She laughed, and it was a bitter, harsh sound. "They haven't had much use for it in the last few hundred years. Now, they mostly let it stay empty."

Dean's gaze sharpened. "Then how did _you_ get here?"

All the mirth fled from her eyes. "They put me here to stop me from interfering," she said, voice bitter. "I was too much of a risk for the angels' plans— knew too much, was willing to _do_ too much. They wanted me out of the picture." She puffed a breath through her nostrils, and the moisture from her breath spewed out like steam from a dragon.

"What was so special about you, then?" Dean asked, the idea of this— creature— being so dangerous that even the angels wanted her out of the way setting his teeth on edge. For a demon, she seemed pretty normal.

Aset stood up from her crouch and struck off toward the pillars again. "My children are children of prophecy. The angels believed I would hold too strong an influence on them— that I would _interfere_."

A laugh burst out of Dean, sudden and loud in the dead air. "Seems to me they knew what they were talking about— look at me. You said you've been watching me since I arrived, and that I believe. You practically herded me here. What I want to know is _why_?"

Aset didn't answer; Dean moved into arm's reach, arm extended to grab her arm, when she raised it to point toward the distance. "That's what you've been searching for, Dean: the way out."

Frustration welled within him at the lack of answer but Dean turned his attention to where Aset had pointed him.

The angels themselves were the same pure, desolate black as the sky, and might have been completely invisible but for the star shining down on them. Looking closely, Dean could see that there was no ice between them; the water was still smooth as glass, but conveyed a sense of movement beneath the surface, as though there were fast running currents just out of sight. The air, empty as it was, somehow struck Dean as turbulent. It gave off a feeling of great heat, as though it was moments from igniting.

Dean dragged his eyes back to Aset. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he said quietly. "You say I came here for Sam— you BROUGHT me here for Sam— and now you want me to leave without him?"

Aset didn't remove her gaze from the water. "You won't be leaving without him, Dean— you found him within hours of your arrival." She shrugged. "The two of you are linked by more than blood, by more than destiny. This place was constructed to keep things out, and in— but within its boundaries it has little influence over the inhabitants. That construct who accompanied you was meant to be a distraction; it had no power beyond its mimicry."

Bullshit. "Sam _isn't here_. You think I'm so blind I'd just forget that?"

Aset turned to face Dean and stepped into Dean's personal space. It was all the more disturbing for how little it rankled Dean's instincts. He kept a close eye on her talons as she reached out and smoothed the line of his jacket, tracing the seam down until her hand reached his pocket. She reached inside; it should have felt invasive, but... didn't.

She stepped back, the bird skull Dean had dug out of the mud held delicately in her hand. She used her left hand to bring Dean's right hand forward, and pressed the skull into his palm. She cupped her hands around it and bent down to kiss the seam of her fingers, and there was a flash of light. When she drew back her hands, Dean was holding a tiny bird.

It was a robin, its breast proud and red. It shook itself, and its feathers puffed at the motion; it hopped off of Dean's hand onto his wrist and then burst into flight, circling Dean's head before landing on his shoulder.

It chirped at him, sudden and loud next to his ear. The sound of its song spread across the lake, and a warmth filled Dean's chest. It was the same feeling he got when he fell asleep listening to Sam's breathing, constant and sure.

Dean twisted his neck to look directly at the bird on his shoulder, close enough his eyes almost crossed. "This is Sammy?" he said, dumbly.

"Yes," Aset said, eyes glued to the robin's— to Sam's— tiny form. She seemed smaller than before, her voice weak and thready. "Not like you knew him," she said, eyes snapping to Dean's suddenly. "He has been here for too long to leave unscathed. This," she pointed a long, black nail at the bird, "is an avatar. He could not stand against the power of this place— no one can, for long— and it reshaped him even as it consumed him. The morning star's light has tainted this place long enough that everything succumbs to it eventually. Your brother's transformation was accelerated; Lucifer held him in too high a regard, gave him too much attention, to allow for anything else."

"I don't understand," Dean said, turning his attention back toward his bird-shaped brother. "If I've had him this whole time, what was the point in all of this?"

Aset put her hand on Dean's other shoulder, manoeuvring him in the direction of the angels. They loomed above them, so tall that trying to see their tops gave him vertigo. "Your brother's shade would not have let you leave. This is the only way for you— you, who have no powers of your own— to leave this place."

"You're full of shit, you know that?" Dean said tiredly, though he went with the press of her hand.

Aset laughed. "It doesn't matter what I tell you, Dean. You won't remember this place, or me."

Dean stepped away from her at that, and glared. "If I'm not going to remember, why not tell me the truth?" he snapped.

Aset's green eyes were sad and too knowing. "Because I will remember you, Dean. I don't get to leave, and if I tell you, I'll have your horror as our last memory together."

That wasn't comforting at all. "Then why don't you come with me?" It was a more appealing thought than Dean would have expected. Despite her gruesome appearance, Dean felt a connection to Aset, like some part of him recognized her as a kindred spirit. "You were a hunter, weren't you? You could come _with_ me."

Sadness turned to tears at the corner of Aset's eyes. "I wish I could." She rested the back of a claw gently against Dean's forehead. "But I can't leave this place any more than those monsters up there could," she said, indicating the angels. "Your brother came here by accident; he wasn't meant to stay. I'm bound to this place, now. I can never leave."

Dean didn't believe it. "I think that's bullshit," he said quietly. He pushed Aset away from himself with a firm hand.

Aset considered him, and smiled at Sam as he released a sharp chirp, hopping in place on Dean's shoulder. "What do you see when you look between the angels, Dean?" she said, voice soft.

Dean frowned, and looked back at the melted water between the two figures. "I see water."

She nodded. "And I see ice. You came here on your own, if not under your own power. You will leave the same way."

Sam burst into flight from Dean's shoulder and flew toward the angels, the chirp of his song overly-loud in the silence. Aset laughed. "Thank you, Sam— no, he won't be leaving alone."

Dean couldn't find his sense of humour on this subject. "You're going to spend eternity trapped here," he said. "If Lucifer's focus on Sam turned him into this, you'll be following in his steps soon. The devil's not going to be happy about having one of his toys taken away."

"The process has already begun," she said. She shook out her feathers and traced a claw along the scales of her neck. "I didn't always look like this, you know."

Her green eyes dug into Dean. "I know," he said. Again, "I know that. Would it hurt just to _try_?"

Aset tilted her head at him, the motion matching too-closely with her birdlike appearance. Her eyes crinkled into a smile. "You aren't the type to ask favours, are you, Dean?" She held out her hand, and Sam landed on it for a brief moment, chirped, and hopped back to Dean's shoulder with a flutter of wings. "I will try. For you, I can try."

The ice didn't weaken as they approached the massive forms of the angels. The air grew colder, and Sam tucked his feathery body against Dean's neck, quiet but for the occasional chirp. It was comforting; the small amount of body heat Sam gave off was the only place Dean's skin didn't feel cold.

The edge of the water was a sharp, dividing line, just as defined as the line between the horizon and sky. Dean looked into the water and shivered. He turned his face into the light press of Sam's feathers against his neck, breathing in the strangely human scent the bird managed to give off. "You're no penguin," he said. "Think you'll be able to survive a bit of water?"

Sam chirped and jumped down from Dean's shoulder, tiny claws grasping the lapels of his coat. He squeezed himself into the space between Dean's jacket and his shirt and let out a happy trill.

Aset let out a high-pitched call of her own; it was unlike what Dean had come to know of her voice in every way, instead completely that of a bird. The air shivered. Dean had the impression the angels bracketing them were suddenly paying a whole lot more attention.

The sense of focus was no lie; slowly, as though each movement took a massive effort, the creatures which had been standing so still rumbled to life. They stretched, and Dean craned his neck up and could just make out the three pairs of wings they spread wide, as though they could envelop the world.

"Which one is that?" Dean shouted over the sound of wind stirred by the hulking Beasts' wings.

Aset laughed, the sound high and hopeful. "Does it matter?" she yelled out.

Two heavenly figures, both cast out from their home— no, Dean didn't think it mattered which one he was supposed to hate, they both deserved to rot for what they'd done to his family. "It doesn't," he said quietly.

He ran his hand down the lump against his chest where Sam rested, and smiled as Sam let out a quiet chirp.

The dark waters began to move faster, enough so that the artificial calm of the surface was broken by waves. Dean crushed the feeling of vertigo looking into the dark caused and took a deep breath. He looked behind him and met Aset's eyes. "Meet you on the other side," he said and forced a roguish smile onto his face.

Aset's green eyes shone with inner joy. "Always," she said quietly.

Dean guided Aset to the edge of the water she couldn't see, and gripped her hand in his own. They dove into the water together

and the water washed everything away.

oOo

"Wake up, Dean."

Dean opened his eyes to find Death staring him in the face. "Woah!" he breathed out, jerking back with enough force to topple his chair and landed hard on the floor. He glared at Death from between his legs. "Think you could warn a guy next time?"

Death raised an eyebrow at Dean and steepled his long, thin fingers together. "Many people have asked me to give them advance notice of my presence," he said, voice smooth as the inside of a coffin. "Let me assure you— knowing I'm coming does _not_ make my presence any less surprising." He smiled. "People just don't want to believe I'm really waiting for them."

Dean swung his legs off the chair before sitting upright; he set the chair back on its legs, a few feet farther back than it had been, and sat down. Death watched his actions with endless patience. "You did quite well, Dean. I must say, I'm impressed."

Crossing his arms, Dean scowled. "Did well at what?"

Death raised his eyebrows. "Maybe not so well, after all." He fell silent and spent a moment considering Dean's expression. "Tell me— what IS the last thing you remember?"

It was a good question. Before Death's voice woke him up, Dean had been— somewhere else. Somewhere cold, if the lingering chill was any indication. "You were going to give me a chance to save Sam," he said. The memory of that conversation with Death wasn't fresh. It was faded, the details— the exact ebb and flow of their conversation— gone with the passage of time.

Time Dean couldn't remember.

"Hmmmm." Death spent a moment staring into Dean's eyes, his gaze grey and unwavering. "The particulars of that dimension have always been a bit strange," he said as though to himself. "It's created a mythology entirely unique but endlessly repeated— tell me, Dean. Did you go swimming while you searched for your brother?"

"Yes," Dean said, the answer torn out from someplace deep inside him. He didn't remember swimming. He didn't remember _shit_, except for Death offering Dean a way out of the clusterfuck he'd made of his family. "Does that mean— did I get him out?" Dean couldn't mask the desperate hope in his voice no matter how hard he tried.

Death tilted his head at Dean, the expression all-too-familiar after too much time spent in the company of angels. "What's in your coat, Dean?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

Dean knew better than to question Death. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and turned them out so Death could see the lining. "I don't have my brother in my pockets. Obviously."

Death's expression shifted to the faintly annoyed look Dean had become too familiar with from one of the cornerstones of the universe. "Inside your jacket, Dean— close to your heart." He reached out and laid his hand on Dean's chest over his heart.

Dean shivered and scooted his chair back, out of arm's length. Death didn't withdraw his hand, but let it trail down the front of Dean's coat until it was entirely out of his reach. Death was a creepy fucker no matter how you sliced it.

Nevertheless, Dean slipped his right hand into the fold of his jacket and felt around, awkward as he groped at himself. He moved to withdraw, and something sharp poked at the back of his hand. Dean tried to trace its outline and failed, so he yanked his hand out and stripped out of his jacket, feeling for the bump over the left breast. He yanked his knife out of his boot and made quick work of the lining; one quick, easy slice was all it took.

His amulet shone at him from inside his jacket, achingly familiar. "Oh," he said, quietly. He lifted it out from between the torn fabric, the leather thong darkened with his own sweat, worn from his own hardships.

"It's just an avatar, of course," Death said. He lifted the amulet easily out of Dean's numb grip and clenched his fist around it; Dean had to look away as light shone out from between Death's fingers, painfully bright. He bent down and carefully opened his Doctor's bag with his left hand, and dropped the shining thing into the bag. "Your real amulet now belongs to a young Mexican girl whose mother found it in the trash."

Dean stared at the bag, filled with a desperate longing to see that light, to have it back, because that was _Sammy's soul_, brighter than the sun and infinitely more beautiful. "So he's gonna be alright?"

Death snapped the bag shut, the click strangely final. "As alright as he can hope to be," he said. "Now, Dean— I'm a very busy man. It's time for you to wake up."

oOo

Dean opened his eyes and found himself in Bobby's house. Death was notably absent.

A bird trilled outside the window, strange and out of place in a junkyard. It sent a flare of hope through Dean's heart but he turned away when Bobby's yell burst through the halls.

He pushed himself to his feet and forced himself to head toward the basement. He didn't know what he would do if Sam didn't come back to himself. He stalked down the steps toward the panic room on silent feet, ready as he could be for whatever was on the other side.

The birds kept singing. Their songs rang hollow, then unheard, as Dean went in search of his brother.

Fin.

Originally posted on my LJ here: .

See thanks and acknowledgements there. :)


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